The Extraterrestrial Epic
by Daedaleopsis
Summary: Sheldon's dreams of meeting a race of superior beings is finally realized, but it's nothing like he had hoped...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own the Big Bang Theory, or any of the characters. I just like to borrow them sometimes.

 **A/N: This one's weird. You've been warned. It takes place sometime after the season five episode "The Beta Test Initiation."**

Chapter 1

Penny had a throbbing headache. She lay very still, hoping to ease the pounding behind her eyes while she tried to remember how she had gotten herself in such a state. The last thing she remembered was… driving Sheldon to the comic book store. How had that led to such a terrible hangover? She moaned and rolled over, only to feel a shock of panic. She was lying on a cold, hard floor. Her eyes flew open, and then she sat up with a gasp. Something was wrong... very, very wrong. She was in some sort of room where the walls and floor glowed with a violet light. Looking down, she realized she was naked, no clothing anywhere in sight, lying on a glowing purple floor. Penny started screaming, and then everything faded to black.

She awoke again to hear someone calling her name and tapping on the floor in triplicate near her ear. She opened her eyes slowly, hoping it had been some bizarre dream. Glowing purple walls—or was that the ceiling?—framed Sheldon's worried visage. She pushed herself up into a half-sitting position, propped up on her elbows. "Sheldon… what happened? Where are we?"

He leaned back in an odd, hunched-over posture. Penny's eyes followed the movement until the realization hit her brain, and she looked away, blushing. They had taken his clothes too. His pale skin reflected the violet glow of the walls. Averting her eyes, Penny sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. It was the best she could do for modesty at the moment.

"Sheldon? You can look now… I guess. Do you remember what happened? How did we get here? And where is here?" Her voice started to rise in panic again.

He scooted closer, and crouching near her awkwardly, he patted her shoulder, murmuring "There, there, Sheldon's here," in what was meant to be a soothing tone. But Penny could tell from the tremor in his voice that he wasn't handling this much better than she was.

"I do not have enough evidence to support a logical hypothesis," Sheldon said after a moment. "But this would appear to be too elaborate a set-up for a practical joke."

"Well then, Dr. Whackadoodle, I suggest we go gather some evidence," Penny said, the quaver in her voice belying her matter-of-fact words.

They spent the better part of an hour exploring the area in which they were confined. It was a large room, roughly twenty by thirty feet, with walls that sloped gradually upwards to a domed ceiling perhaps twenty feet high. (An inefficient design, Sheldon muttered darkly.) In one corner was an alcove about six feet square with a low ceiling. The floor of the alcove was soft and yielding to the touch, and the walls of the niche were dark. A sleeping area, they agreed, which made Penny feel even more panicked at the thought of being in this place for an extended time. The only other features in the room were a strange sunken pit and a smaller, shallow depression, both filled with a viscous teal fluid. Sheldon suggested they were a bathing area and some sort of latrine, which Penny found thoroughly revolting and tried to put it out of her mind. Other than the alcove and the pools, however, the room was completely homogenous. The purple walls were cool to the touch, seamless, and glowed with a soft light in shades from magenta to violet. There was no evidence of a door, a window, a ventilation shaft, or any other opening to mar the smooth surface of the purple walls.

Penny finally sank to the floor in defeat. There seemed to be no way out and nothing they could do but wait and see what would happen. She glanced idly over at Sheldon, who was still examining the walls. She noted with some surprise that he wasn't all bone and skin as she had always assumed he was underneath all those layers. He was thin, of course, but he had some muscle definition in his arms and back. Her gaze drifted lower, and then blushing, she looked away. This was Sheldon. What was she thinking, checking him out? Then as she glanced back at him, she drew in her breath sharply. "Sheldon, your head," she cried. She rushed to his side and lifted trembling fingers to his scalp.

His eyes were wide with alarm as she smoothed her fingers over a spot just above his temple. He felt her fingers brush against smooth skin, and his hand automatically flew to the same place. There was a thin, pink, hairless line along his scalp a few inches above his left ear, visible because the hair had been shaved from around the incision.

"Holy crap on a cracker," she whispered, "I think they did something to you, Sheldon."

Abruptly she jumped up, hands balled into fists. "This isn't funny!" she yelled at the air. She pounded on the walls with her fists. "Show your face, you frigging cowards! How dare you keep us locked up like this! I'm gonna hogtie and castrate all of you!" The strain of the situation had finally gotten the best of her. She kept yelling and screaming for quite some time until she finally collapsed, sobbing, onto the floor.

Sheldon had been staring unseeing at the wall as he contemplated the meaning of the healed-over scar near his temporal lobe. His mind whirled with possibilities, but there were simply too many variables to form any solid hypothesis. After some time, he noticed that the noise had subsided. He looked over at Penny, slumped in semi-conscious exhaustion on the floor. He realized with surprise that her tantrum had been precipitated by the knowledge that he may have been harmed. Feeling completely enervated, he curled up on the floor nearby. He was drained, both mentally and emotionally, but his mind kept racing in circles, trying to analyze their situation, until finally he too succumbed to fatigue.

Penny awoke a few hours later. She stifled a scream as she opened her eyes and realized that the events of last night were not some terrible nightmare. Sheldon sat bolt upright at her cry, yelling, "Danger! Danger!" which Penny found bizarrely apropos.

"Did anyone come into the room? Did you see anyone?" Penny quavered. Sheldon shook his head.

"Why are we here?" Penny moaned. "Whose sick idea of a joke is this?"

Sheldon, who had always been more open to the possibility of alien intelligence, opened his mouth to tell her the conclusions he had drawn. But before he could speak, a strange sensation distracted them both. Penny looked around. The sensation was like the change in pressure in the cabin of a plane that was taking off. Suddenly, Sheldon gasped and pointed toward the center of the room, where something was rising through the solid floor. Although he dashed toward the spot, the physicist wasn't able to observe the mysterious effect at close range. Now, sitting insouciantly in the middle of the room, was a tray which contained a tall, metal container shaped like a vase and some bland colored lumps. Penny knelt beside him, looking at the tray with a dubious expression on her face.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked, horrified.

Sheldon sniffed at the liquid in the pitcher, and then dipped a cautious fingertip into it. He examined the beige lumps in the same way. "It appears to be water, and some kind of protein substrate," he announced glumly. "In other words, breakfast."

"No way in hell I'm eating or drinking anything that just appears out of the floor," Penny snarled, her temper flaring up once more. "For all we know, it's poisoned."

"May I point out that whoever possesses the technology to imprison us in a room without windows or doors and can make food materialize through the floor, hardly need bother to poison us? If they wanted to kill us, we would already be dead," Sheldon replied.

She looked at him wide-eyed, grasping at straws. "Sheldon, you're always up on the latest technology. Could we have been captured by some secret government agency?"

Reluctantly, he shook his head. "To use a popular phrase, this technology is light-years ahead of anything any government on earth has produced."

All the color in her face drained away at his use of the word earth. She sank to the floor, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her up. "Oh holy crap, you mean aliens, don't you?" she gasped.

"Empirical evidence does seem to indicate…" Suddenly, the physicist broke off mid-sentence. He had a stunned expression on his face.

"Sheldon, what's wrong?" Penny asked, getting to her feet, alarmed.

Sheldon waved a hand, motioning her for silence. "Who are you?" he asked, looking around wildly. "Why have we been detained?"

Penny's eyes widened. Who was he talking to? Had the stress finally sent him over the edge of sanity? It didn't seem too much of a stretch for someone that his roommate had once called "one lab accident away from a super villain". Sheldon continued talking to himself. It was like listening to one side of a phone conversation, although clearly Sheldon did not have a phone anywhere on his person.

Then suddenly he yelled, "We are sentient, intelligent beings! You have no right to treat us this way! Answer me! _Answer me_!" Then he slumped to the floor, cradling his head in his hands in a posture of defeat.

"Sheldon, what's going on? Who were you talking to?" Penny asked, more than a little unnerved by this display.

She crossed the room and sat down next to him. His whole body was shaking, trembling violently, and Penny heard him gulping for air as he tried to get his emotions back under control. She hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder, and he didn't even seem to notice for a long moment. Finally he straightened up, and Penny let her hand drop.

"I believe that the purpose of this procedure..." He touched the scar on the side of his head gingerly. "...was to implant some sort of communication device in my head. It seems that their technology somehow allows them to communicate directly with my primary auditory cortex, bypassing the peripheral auditory system."

Penny gaped at him. She didn't understand all of the big words he used, but she thought she understood the first part of his speech. "You're hearing voices in your head? I mean, actually hearing voices in your head?" He nodded slowly, his eyes wide and unfocused. "So I guess it's not good news, huh?" she asked, trying hard to keep the note of panic out of her voice.

"They don't think we're sentient," he said with a tone of utter confusion. "How can that be? I have an IQ of 187."

"But who are they? What do they want?" she pleaded.

"Penny, please, I am attempting to explain," he snapped, seeming a little more like his former self. "Whoever was speaking to me did not deign to identify himself. It appears that we were randomly collected as a representative sample of Homo sapiens. He said they are conducting a survey of proto-sentient races."

"I don't understand what that means."

"It means that they don't consider human beings to be intelligent enough to be treated as people," Sheldon explained angrily. "He said that I only possessed two of the eight benchmarks of intelligence. In his eyes, apparently, we are rather smart animals."

"Well, If he thinks you're not smart enough, then I must really seem like a blonde monkey," Penny groused.

He shook his head and held up his index finger in the posture she recognized as his lecture mode. "Sentience is not merely just intelligence. It is a measure of whether a species is self-aware and conscious. In most popular science fiction tropes, sentience implies that an individual or species has rights."

"But… I don't understand," Penny protested. "How can you be talking with someone who doesn't think you're self-aware or intelligent, even though you're having a conversation?"

"I honestly don't know," he said. "But given that our unknown captors have performed invasive medical procedures on us without our consent, and have confined us in quarters with a minimum of amenities, I surmise that from their perspective, we are little more than lab rats or animals in a zoo."


	2. Chapter 2

Days passed in a blur. The only way they had to mark the passage of time was the regular appearance of the same bland rations, which neither of them cared to count. Both of them were struggling with their isolated confinement. Penny spent much of the time screaming and cursing, pounding on the walls with her fists. She had tried to make a hole in one of the walls using the metallic water pitcher as a weapon. She only succeeded in slightly denting the pitcher; the walls remained unmarred. The pitcher disappeared as she slept, and the next time a meal rose up through the floor, the water was in a clear flexible sack which held its shape but dissolved after about an hour. Sheldon had been ignoring her. He spent most of his time sitting curled up tightly, staring at the wall. Sometimes he muttered to himself, but it was all words like "epsilon" and "sine", complete gibberish to Penny.

Then one time, Penny woke up to find Sheldon lying face down in the middle of the floor. She called his name, but there was no response. Frightened, she went over to him and saw that he was lying in a clear puddle, with the empty water sack lying beside him. He had his hands near his head, fingers splayed wide across the floor. She could see that he was still breathing, which was a relief.

"Sheldon, sweetie, what are you doing?" she asked in a falsely cheerful voice. She could see now that his eyes were open.

He blinked a few times and replied without moving, "The water leaves by osmosis. The food is delivered by diffusion. The body could leave by diffusion. Protein, carbohydrate, lipid, water… the body could be food. The body could be mistaken for food."

Penny couldn't breathe. She felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. Had Sheldon gone crazy? What the hell was he talking about? She tugged at his arm. "Sheldon, please get up. You're scaring me," she pleaded.

He flinched at her touch. "Must lie still. Food doesn't move," he muttered.

A cold wave of panic washed over Penny, along with a growing conviction that this was somehow her fault. They had both been obsessed with thoughts of escape, but all of her efforts were focused outward, while Sheldon had sunk deeper and deeper into his own mind. She didn't even know when he had last eaten or slept. She grabbed his arm again and hauled upward with all her strength.

"Sheldon Lee Cooper, you get your ass up off that floor!" she yelled.

Jerked into an upright position, Sheldon glared at her with such animosity that she paled and took a step backward, dropping his arm like it was a live grenade.

"You've ruined it," he said icily after a long pause. He got to his feet and brushed the water off his arms and torso with as much dignity as it he had been wearing a three-piece suit. Then he turned his back on her, stalked off to another corner of the room and sat down facing the wall again.

When he stood, Penny could see that he had lost weight. She could have counted his ribs, and it made her feel horribly guilty. He needed her. She knew that, but instead of working together with him, she had been acting like a rabid animal snapping at the bars of its cage. If there was some way to prove to their captors that they were sentient and deserved to be treated like people, this was certainly not the way to go about it. After a moment's thought, she got up and walked across the room. Sheldon didn't look at her as she approached, but as she sat down near him, he inched away.

"Sheldon, I'm sorry I ruined your, uh... experiment," she offered. No response.

"So what was it? What were you trying to do?" she prompted.

He blinked. "I was fixated by the idea that if our food and water somehow pass through the floor, that maybe I could fool the system into transporting me out in the same way."

"That sounds like a good idea," she said encouragingly.

He scoffed. "The average first grader could probably come up with a better plan."

"Well, I tried to break down the wall with my bare hands. What does that make me?" she said with a sarcastic edge to her words.

Again, he didn't answer. Maybe she didn't want to hear what he really thought of her, but her goal was to get him talking again instead of locked up inside his mind. Thinking back, she realized that he had responded when she asked him about his science-y stuff. Maybe she could get him talking about science. However, she fervently hoped his explanation didn't begin with a warm summer night in ancient Greece, which was how he had started to explain physics to her years ago. With a slight mental cringe, she asked aloud, "So what was that diffusion thing you were talking about?"

He glanced at her, but replied dismissively, "You wouldn't understand."

Crap, was she really going to have to beg him to explain science to her? "Come on, Sheldon, it's not like we have anything better to do. Hey, this is your big chance to educate the blonde monkey. Maybe if I get smart enough, they'll let us out of here."

She saw from the bleak expression on his face that she had said the wrong thing, and she immediately realized her mistake. If Sheldon wasn't smart enough to be considered sentient, there was no way she would ever be anywhere near as smart as he was, no matter how long he tutored her. So she tried a different tack. "Talk to me, Sheldon, please," she begged. "I just really need someone to talk to. I don't care what you say, just say something."

At that, he turned his head and met her gaze. She had no idea what he was thinking as he stared at her, but he finally replied, "The basic principle behind the concept of diffusion is…"

Mentally, she breathed a sigh of relief. Even if they couldn't find a way to escape, at least she no longer felt alone.

* * *

The next night (or at least, when she started to get tired), Penny looked over at Sheldon. He looked as if he were about to curl up on the hard floor again. She understood why he refused to share the alcove with her, but she was filled with a newfound determination to take care of him in any way that she could. She knew he would feel better if he had a good night's rest.

"You know, there's room enough over here for both of us to sleep without touching each other," she invited, patting the spongy purple surface of the alcove with her hand.

"I have no doubt that you sprawl all over your sleeping area. Your personal habits do not lend themselves to neatness," he replied disdainfully.

"Hey, I'm sure the thought of you lying naked next to me would keep me far over on my side even when I'm asleep," she snapped back, conveniently overlooking the times she'd felt attracted to him over the past days. There was no reply. She huffed. "Fine, have it your way; no skin off my nose," she grumbled. She curled up in a ball and tried to forget about her circumstances long enough to fall asleep. Eventually, she sank into an uneasy slumber.

In the morning, Penny noticed Sheldon twisting his neck and wincing. "Stiff neck?" she asked, not unsympathetically. He jerked his head in a brief nod.

"Do you want me to give you a massage?" Penny offered.

"No, that won't be necessary", Sheldon replied without much conviction. He switched to scratching at the beard which was growing in along his jawline. He much preferred to be clean shaven, but he didn't have a choice in the matter.

"Come on, Sheldon," she coaxed. "I can see you're in pain."

"No, I'm perfectly fine," he replied, but the twitching in his eye and cheek muscles gave the lie to his statement.

Penny sighed. He could be so insanely stubborn. She knew she wasn't going to win this one, at least not yet. She hoped she could wear him down and convince him to sleep in the alcove, then maybe his knotted muscles would sort themselves out. The next best thing she could think to do was to distract him, so she sat down with her back against a wall and asked him to tell her about Doctor Who. It worked only too well. His eyes lit up and he asked eagerly, "Would you like me to recite an episode?"

Penny had discovered that his eidetic memory was rather useful in this bizarre situation. Sheldon could recite the entire script of any Doctor Who episode—or any other TV show or movie he had ever seen—as well as describe in great detail what the characters were doing. She could almost pretend they were back home, sitting on the leather couch in Sheldon and Leonard's apartment, watching some sci-fi movie where she didn't understand half the plot. She discovered that she actually liked Doctor Who as Sheldon told it. The show seemed to be heavy on manic action and light on scientific descriptions. As an actress, she appreciated the plot device of a "sonic screwdriver", a sort of all-purpose tool that could do almost anything the story line required.

Penny smiled to herself. Although she wouldn't call herself a nerd, she could now blend into that world in a way her high-school self wouldn't have been able to comprehend. She had matured a little over the years, enough at least to recognize that no one should be mocked for liking something that wasn't "mainstream", and enough to realize that the trials that her friends had endured at the hands of their peers had transformed them into caring, genuine, good people. Well, most of the time that was true. Howard was still a sleaze sometimes, even after meeting Bernadette, and Leonard could be a real jackass when someone tread too close to his sense of entitlement. He did occasionally act as if being a nerd automatically made him the hero of his own epic.

The funny thing was, she knew Sheldon sometimes got on his high horse too, but when he did, it wasn't because he was trying to be a jerk. It was because he honestly couldn't comprehend a world where others didn't see things the way he did. It was that blend of innocence and arrogance that made him so fun to tease. She loved seeing him get all worked up over some tiny detail. Was it so wrong that she loved pushing his buttons, seeing the fire in his eyes and the commanding tone in his voice? She had to admit, if Sheldon had been any other guy, her friends would have accused her of flirting with him. And that was what she was doing all those times, wasn't it? Testing, pushing limits, secretly fantasizing that one day he would snap, grab her, pin her to the wall and ravage her with mouth and tongue and hands until she yielded. She jerked her mind away from such traitorous thoughts and came back to the present with a start. Holy crap on a cracker, she thought as Sheldon happily and obliviously nattered on about Daleks. How long had she secretly had these fantasies about him?


	3. Chapter 3

After weeks of boredom and idle speculation, Penny and Sheldon finally got a glimpse of their alien abductors. It happened towards the end of their day. Sheldon was taking a bath. He surmised that the teal fluid contained enzymes that diligently removed every bit of dead skin or oil from their bodies, so he liked to soak for a long time. Penny was lying in the alcove, humming softly to herself. She wasn't sure if he might be doing anything she wouldn't want to hear, but she tried to give him the illusion of privacy at least.

Suddenly, Penny heard a hissing noise, and a strange lassitude came over her. She couldn't remember the words of the song she had been singing, but she felt relaxed and completely unconcerned. She looked around lazily, wondering if Sheldon was experiencing the same thing. The sight of an opening appearing in the wall caught her eye instead. Two figures entered the room. They were dressed in light blue suits that completely covered their bodies. As the two people, or aliens, approached Sheldon, she could see that they were quite short, not much more than four feet tall. Penny tried to get up, but it was as if her body wasn't responding to her mental cues. The aliens herded a bemused and unresisting Sheldon toward the opening. They stepped through, and the opening disappeared as if it had never existed.

After a few more minutes, Penny's head began to clear. She began to panic as she ran on unsteady legs toward the spot where the wall had opened. She felt all around, trying to make the wall open up again, but it was no use. She started pounding on the wall with her fists, yelling Sheldon's name and cursing the aliens that were treating them like lab rats. As the silence filled her ears, Penny realized that she was now completely and utterly alone. She curled up in a tight ball in the alcove, trying not to cry or even think. If she couldn't make all the bad things stop, maybe _she_ could just stop. If he didn't come back—her mind shied away from that thought. He had to come back. She was more scared than she could ever remember being in her life. There had been small signs that they were being passively manipulated. Penny hadn't had a period since they'd arrived, and for both of them, their hair and nails were growing much more slowly than normal. Those indications had been easy to ignore, but seeing Sheldon taken away before her eyes sent her into a blind panic.

After what seemed like hours, she heard the hissing sound again. She tried to hold her breath so she wouldn't succumb to the effects of the drug, but it was useless. As the drug suppressed her mental energy, the portal in the wall again appeared. This time, the two blue-suited aliens dragged an unconscious Sheldon into the room. Each had one of his long arms draped across their shoulders, and Sheldon's legs trailed limply along the floor. The aliens lowered Sheldon to the ground and left.

After a few minutes, Penny was able to focus enough to crawl across the room toward Sheldon. Trembling, she cradled him close to her and smoothed his hair, turning her head to the side so her tears wouldn't fall on his face. Her greatest fear now was that they had done would change him somehow, or that he would open his eyes and not know who she was. She felt so scared and lost, and he was all she had.

"Come back to me, Sheldon, please. I need you," she pleaded, clutching him to her with a fierce grasp while she kissed his hair and face. He stirred and made a small noise, and Penny choked back a sob of relief as she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. "Sheldon, can you hear me?" she asked.

His eyes fluttered open and met hers with a similar look of relief. But as the realization that he was lying in Penny's lap cradled against her breasts struck him, his face suffused with a deep brick red color, and he pushed himself away from her. She let him go with a pang of regret that felt like a physical pain.

"I'm sorry, Sheldon, I know you hate to be touched. I was just so worried about you," she whispered, agonized. As the former physicist met her gaze, she saw the fear in his eyes and knew that he felt just as frightened and powerless as she did. He reached out and awkwardly stroked her hair.

"There, there, Sheldon's here," he murmured soothingly. In another time and place, his words had once struck her as both amusing and vastly egotistical. Now they were her lifeline, and with a choked cry, she couldn't stop herself from burying her face in his shoulder as she wept. Something must have changed for Sheldon as well, because he continued to hold her and stroke her hair as she cried.

* * *

The days dragged out endlessly. Their enigmatic captors had provided them with absolutely nothing to occupy themselves, so all they could do was talk to each other. Sheldon had tried to teach Penny to play his element game, but she just kept guessing "oxygen" each time (the only one she could remember), leading him to give up in disgust. So he then tried to teach her the element song. Penny could now sing the first few lines without making too many mistakes, and Sheldon commented that her vocal tone was not as excruciatingly bad as he remembered. She grinned, choosing not to take offense, as she told him that she had picked up extra shifts at the Cheesecake Factory to pay for voice lessons.

"Tell me what it was like growing up in east Texas," Penny prompted one day. In Pasadena, Sheldon had never been willing to talk about his past, only letting small details slip accidentally. Here, motivated by sheer boredom, they both had gradually begun to share more about themselves.

Sheldon eagerly launched into stories of nature walks and planetarium visits with his Meemaw and Pop Pop. Meemaw had taught him how to bake, and his grandparents had allowed him to set up his experiments all over their house. He told stories of prank wars with Missy, and how she would come to his rescue with fists flying if he was being harassed by bullies. He smiled as he recalled how he and Missy would whisper to each other every night after their mom had tucked them in bed. They had shared a room until he was nine, a fact he remembered with exasperated fondness. He talked about how he used to exasperate his mother by debating evolution with her, and how she used to end every argument by ordering him to go do chores in that tone of voice that always made him jump.

His father didn't figure prominently in his stories about his childhood. A truck driver by occupation, Sheldon's dad had never been able to relate to his obsessively curious and brilliant son. He would occasionally try to mold Sheldon into the type of son he wanted by taking him out shooting at tin cans or watching football. More often than not, they had just tried to stay out of each other's way. George Cooper had had a short fuse. When Sheldon was eight, a back injury forced his father to quit working and live off disability. George deeply resented the well-meaning help from their local church congregation and hated that his wife started attending services every time the church opened their doors. He started drinking more heavily, and Sheldon always took the brunt of his temper. When Sheldon was ten years old, his father sent him off to a preppy boarding school which had offered a full scholarship. The following year, Sheldon matriculated to a university and never looked back.

In return, Penny told him about growing up on her parent's dairy farm outside of Omaha. She had always looked up to her father and how he lived his life exactly the way he pleased, the rest of the world be damned. At the tender age of five, Penny had decided that she was going to be just like her dad. Anything that he expressed approval of, she threw herself into wholeheartedly: softball, 4-H, junior rodeo. For several years, he was her hero, her whole world. She never wanted anything to change.

Things did change for her, perhaps inevitably. The summer that she turned thirteen and Bobby Haskell started hanging around was when her father started to treat her differently. He acted as if she was no longer his "little slugger", but a stranger. Bereft of attention from her father, she found that wearing mini-skirts and midriff-baring tops would get her plenty of attention from the boys at school. It wasn't long before she discovered the heady fun of making out, followed by the dizzying buzz she would get from the beers the boys sneaked from their dad's stash. She soon had a reputation as the school slut, but she told herself that the other girls were just jealous because of her popularity. Even once she moved to California where pretty blondes were a dime a dozen, she had still found a way to surround herself with a group of admiring men. That was why she supposed she had wanted to become an actress. She craved the glamour and the attention, but she struggled with her career because she wasn't used to having to expend any effort to gain people's attention.

Penny was surprised to find herself telling Sheldon some of the things she did. Usually, people liked her because she was pretty, and to them, she was Penny-the-blonde-bombshell. Others saw her as Penny-the-minimum-wage-waitress. All too often around "her" guys, she felt like Penny-the-dumb-blonde. She had assumed that that was how Sheldon thought of her. But now that it was just the two of them, she found that he listened attentively to her stories, asked her questions, and made judgmental comments less and less frequently. Penny wondered if the changes in him were because he realized that she was the only person in his life now, and he was reluctant to upset her. She hoped not. She hoped their new closeness was because they knew and understood each other better. He had always been special to her, but this enforced time together had created a bond between them that transcended any friendship.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for all the comments! For those of you who were wondering where I came up with this idea, I was loosely inspired by Alan Dean Foster's novel Lost & Found._


	4. Chapter 4

Sheldon found that he was starting to feel confused. It was an emotion that he rarely experienced, since he was accustomed to dealing with data and facts. His growing closeness with Penny was beginning to change how he thought of her. He was beginning to understand the choices she'd made in her life. In the past, he'd called her any number of unflattering names and insulted her intelligence, and she'd given as good as she'd got. Now, as their friendship deepened, he was coming to realize that she had many traits he admired. She was strong-willed: even in such trying circumstances, she would rather fight than give up. She was considerate and kind. She had pulled him back from what was most likely the beginning of a mental breakdown. Even though he didn't always understand her sense of humor, he liked that she could still be positive and laugh at their situation. And then there was the way he found his body responding to her presence. It wasn't just her graceful curves he was attracted to; it was also the way her hair fell around her face, the sparkle in her hazel eyes, and the dimple that appeared in her cheek when she laughed. He felt drawn to her more and more each day. He struggled with the urge to stroke her blonde locks or caress her cheek. He even found himself daydreaming about what she would do if he kissed her. He was familiar with primitive biological urges, but when he had those kinds of thoughts, he usually pictured a generic, anonymous female form. He dealt with his body's physical needs privately, in the most efficient manner possible. He wondered if these new feelings of his might be artificial, caused by some form of traumatic bonding that would never have occurred under ordinary circumstances. It was certainly easier to imagine he had a form of Stockholm syndrome than to attempt to understand what he felt for Penny.

He'd been sleeping in the alcove with her for some time now, after weeks of what he termed her constant nagging. The area of the soft surface was slightly larger than a king-sized bed, so he slept on the edge closest to the floor, while Penny stayed near the wall. He found that he was a little chilly without his t-shirt, pajamas and robe, and so he had actually started to sleep curled up on his side, breaking his usual habit of lying on his back, straight as a board. The fact that he missed all his warm layers of clothing must be the reason he occasionally woke up wrapped around Penny's sleeping form. He had been chagrined the first time it had happened, until he had realized that Penny was an extremely sound sleeper. He was relieved that he had been able to extricate himself and rise without waking her.

Everything was changing for Sheldon: his thoughts, his feelings, his habits. Penny was the only constant in his life. Even as he began to think of her in increasingly intimate ways, he balked at the idea of trying to tell her how he felt. They had been imprisoned together for fifty-seven days, at his best estimate. That wasn't nearly long enough to make her forget about Leonard, although he rarely thought about Amy anymore. As far as he was concerned, Amy was in his past. He determined that the odds of them ever making their way back home were infinitesimally low, but he wasn't sure if Penny had yet arrived at the same conclusion.

* * *

One day, while Penny and Sheldon were talking, Sheldon suddenly demanded, apropos of nothing, "Do you miss Leonard?"

Penny was taken aback by his question. As an unspoken rule, they tended to avoid talking about things like that. She didn't mind bringing up subjects from her more distant past, but it was just too painful for her to imagine what their family and friends must now be suffering at their disappearance. Sheldon generally avoided those topics, ever since he understood that certain thoughtless queries from him would cause Penny to fall into a depression and withdraw from him. She was silent now, trying to express her feelings in a way that Sheldon would understand.

"Sheldon," she began, "do you remember that Christmas a few years ago-"

"I remember all my Christmases. I have an eidetic memory," Sheldon responded.

"The one where I gave you the autographed napkin from Leonard Nimoy," she finished with an exaggerated sigh.

Sheldon remained silent, raising one eyebrow at her in a haughty expression. _I already told you that I remember_ , his smug look seemed to say.

"You were so overcome. You showered me with presents, and then you gave me a hug, a real hug, one that lasted more than a second, that wasn't all stiff and awkward…" Penny smiled softly at the memory. She looked straight into Sheldon's eyes as she said, "Sometimes when I'm feeling down, thinking I'll never do anything with my life, I remember that moment. And it makes me feel better, because in that moment, you made me feel like someone who mattered, like I had a place in the world, like I was special."

"You haven't answered my question. I asked if you missed Leonard," Sheldon pointed out, and then snapped his jaw shut, wishing for reasons he couldn't fathom that he could take his words back. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Sheldon tried not to notice the movement of her body as she did so. Tried, and failed. He gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead.

"Right, I was getting to that. I think Leonard would have fallen hard and fast for any girl who didn't treat him like dirt, especially one who was pretty. Sure, he liked me, but I never felt like I was really the right person for him. I was just... willing." Penny sighed. "So yeah, I miss him. But not really in the way I thought I would. Do you know I've never met his family?"

Sheldon wondered if she were changing the subject. Penny's mind moved down strange, twisted paths that baffled his highly organized and logical thought processes.

"Oh sure, I've met his mom," Penny continued, "because she came to visit him in California. But he's never taken me to meet the rest of his family: his dad, or his brother and sister. I can't help but think that he's ashamed of me. I mean, if he's the dummy in his family, than what must he think of me? Sometimes I don't even know what he sees in me, besides the fact that I'm hot, good in bed and supportive of what he does. You remember when we broke up and he hopped in bed with Dr. Slut-bunny?"

"You mean my acquaintance, Dr. Plimpton? Yes, there is yet another memory I wish I could excise from my brain," Sheldon replied with a shudder and a tone of utmost disdain.

"Yeah, well, it had only been a few days since we broke up, and when I asked him why he did it, he said, _she let me_ ," Penny wailed. "Is that really all he looks for in a girlfriend? I mean, all we ever did together was hang out with the gang and have sex. We didn't really talk to each other that much. That one time when we tried to go to a movie together as friends, it was a total disaster. He told me to my face he used to pretend to be interested in the things I liked just so he could get laid."

At this point, Penny's eyes were welling with tears, and with a sob, she buried her head in Sheldon's shoulder. "What's wrong with me, Sheldon?" she choked out.

The lanky physicist was definitely way outside of his comfort zone. The silken texture of her hair and the soft roundness of her breast pressed against his side were causing him to experience feelings that he had been trying to keep under lock and key, repressed and strictly controlled. He could barely gather his thoughts together sufficiently to put an arm gingerly around her shoulders and whisper, "There, there, Sheldon's here."

In response, Penny wrapped her arms tightly about his torso and held on to him until her sobs subsided. Then, she was so still that Sheldon wondered if she had fallen asleep.

"Penny?" he whispered, looking down at the top of her head. She lifted her head and met his clear blue eyes with her own tear-reddened green eyes.

"Sheldon?" she whispered back, searching his face for an answer to her unspoken question. She must have found her answer, for in the next moment, she leaned forward and closed the gap between them. Her soft lips touched his, and his mind went blank, filled with nothing but touch and taste and _Penny_. He was drowning in sensation. It completely overwhelmed his senses, and it was ecstasy. Someone moaned softly (Was that _me_? Sheldon wondered), and the spell was broken. Penny pulled away, a horrified look on her face.

"Oh, no, Sheldon… I'm so sorry… I didn't mean… and you and germs… I just…"

Sheldon could do nothing but stare at her with an expression akin to shock as she babbled incoherently. Then she fled, leaving him alone with thoughts whirling around in his head like electrons around a nucleus.


	5. Chapter 5

Sheldon sat motionless long after Penny had run away after kissing him. He was deep in thought, trying to process what had just happened. Unlike mathematics, which he found beautiful in their orderliness and logic, human emotions confounded him. Penny had been crying, which was usually an indication that she was feeling sad… unless she had been crying because she was happy. Once, his mother had said she was crying because she was mad enough to spit. So Penny could have been angry. Then again, she had been talking about Leonard, so perhaps she kissed him because she was missing the intimacy of a physical relationship. Emotions were so bewildering, Sheldon reflected.

His own feelings were even more of a mystery. Just weeks ago, the thought of Penny kissing him would have filled him with horror and distaste. Yet he hadn't experienced anything like that when her lips touched his. Instead, he had felt a flash of excitement. That was the one emotion he could identify easily, akin to the feeling just before he opened a new comic book or watched a long-anticipated movie. When Penny had pulled away, he felt a sinking feeling that he thought was disappointment. But what to make of that strange moment in time where he had stopped thinking and focused entirely on external stimuli? He'd felt a tingling sensation run through his entire body, almost like an electrical current. If it weren't such a preposterous thought, he would have asked Penny if she had somehow managed to hide a battery under her tongue. He sighed audibly. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have just ignored the whole situation in the hopes that things would blow over. But here, in this prison, he did not have the luxury of distraction. He had to talk to Penny. Perhaps she could help him understand.

Coming to a decision, Sheldon got up and glanced around, looking for Penny. She was curled up in the alcove. Sheldon was relieved to find that she was not crying again. The former waitress, never a bastion of logic, had been an emotional wreck the past… ninety-six days, Sheldon thought, tallying up the days in his head. He padded quietly over to the sleeping area.

"Penny… Penny… Penny," Sheldon called. He rapped on the wall next to the alcove as he called her name, but the smooth violet wall made no noise as he did so. She lifted her head to look at him. "Oh Sheldon, I'm so sorry," she said, her cheeks flushed with mortification. "I just reacted. I wasn't thinking at all. Please don't be mad at me?"

"Your apology is accepted. Although perhaps you might find your life simpler if you applied logic to your circumstances instead of reacting in an irrational and emotional manner," Sheldon said primly, his ego bolstered by her apology.

"What? Sheldon, that's ridiculous," Penny protested, sitting up and facing him. Her chin jutted out in an unconscious imitation of his 'battle mode'. "People need their emotions and intuition in order to understand what's really going on around them. That's how _you_ get yourself in trouble in social situations; you have no idea what people are feeling."

"Preposterous," he rejoined, glad to divert the topic from the uncomfortable scenario of a few moments ago. "Emotions are a vestige of primitive human existence, from a time when people lived in constant danger of being eaten by large predators. The more evolved _Homo novus_ has no need of such things."

"Oh, come on, Sheldon. Do you really think you can go through life only using half your brain? I mean, emotions come from your brain, and part of your brain processes them, right?" Penny argued.

Sheldon was surprised that she knew even that much, but he didn't let it show on his face as he retorted, "Nothing good has ever come of people allowing themselves to be led around by their emotions. The human brain is capable of extraordinary feats of adaptation. It is my hope that someday mankind can evolve beyond emotion."

"Look, Sheldon, you can't just pretend you don't have feelings," Penny protested. "I know you do. You just don't let them show very often, at least not with people. Everyone knows you love physics and comic book heroes and _Doctor Who_. And people who get to know you find out that you have a deep love for your family, especially your Meemaw, and in your own way, you love your friends too. You're very loyal to them, no matter how they treat you. Even though you kind of insult everyone, I think you do it just to keep people at a distance. You've been hurt and misunderstood too often in the past, so you push them away before they can reject you."

Sheldon was staring at her with his mouth agape. "Ridiculous," he muttered weakly after a long pause.

Penny ignored him and continued on. "But you _are_ capable of having friends and relating to people. Remember that time you bought Amy her tiara?" Sheldon nodded slowly, wishing she hadn't mentioned his former girlfriend.

"You cared about her. You paid attention to what she liked, and you made her happy." Penny smacked his knee in emphasis.

"Owww," he whined.

"Oh, don't be such a baby—" Penny began to say, but broke off as Sheldon muttered something under his breath. He had been less forthcoming than usual because they were talking about emotions, and now she felt that whatever he said was important. "What was that about Amy, sweetie?" she asked, leaning closer.

He stared at her with wide sapphire-blue eyes before dropping his gaze and repeating softly, "Amy was supposed to be safe."

"What does that mean?" Penny asked, surprise making her words come out more bluntly than she intended.

"When I met Amy, I thought I had met the only woman who would ever be interested in a perfectly logical and platonic relationship," Sheldon began. "One free of that pointless and confusing morass called emotion. But to my dismay, I have discovered she is just as illogical and subject to hormone-fueled whim as the rest of you."

"But you like Amy..." Penny began.

"Yes, I do like her, as a friend. I never had any desire to alter our relationship paradigm. But not only did she wheedle and pressure me to add a romantic component to our relationship, you did as well… and so did Leonard and Raj and Howard. Even my mother tricked me into apologizing to her when it seemed that our relationship had reached its natural and inevitable conclusion. I was at a loss. I had no previous experience on which to model my behavior. Almost everyone whose opinion I valued was urging me to continue in this romantic endeavor. _You_ even threatened to 'kick my ass' if I hurt Amy's feelings," Sheldon ended with an accusatory glare.

"We were doing it for your own good, sweetie. None of us could imagine a woman better suited to you because she was so much like you: smart, logical and prone to treating the rest of the human race like lab rats," Penny pointed out with a wry grimace. "She really does seem to be your perfect mate."

"I suppose that is why I have allowed the relationship to continue," Sheldon said, after a pause. "My mother always used to tell me that I would be lucky to ever find anyone willing to put up with me."

"Oh, Sheldon, that's terrible," Penny cried, horrified, but he held up a hand for silence.

"No, I think she was just being honest," he replied. "She wanted me to know that by choosing the pursuit of scientific advancement over interpersonal interaction, I would severely limit other aspects of my life. When she gave me this advice, it was just before I left for college. What she didn't understand was that at the time, that was exactly the kind of life I wanted."

"And now?" Penny prompted softly.

"After the fiasco in the Arctic, I have determined that my estimation of the level of friendship I believed I shared with Leonard, Howard and Raj was flawed. I do not make mistakes in my field of expertise," he asserted, his jaw jutting forward defiantly, "but the mistake I made by trusting my so-called friends set my career back years. I know that Amy does not approve of my love of trains or video games or comic books, but neither do I believe that she would ever betray me in a professional capacity."

 _Aha, so Sheldon thinks Amy is safe on another level as well_ , Penny thought. But when she opened her mouth, the words that came out were: "What about me, Sheldon? Where do I fit into your idea of friendship?"

Sheldon swept her face with a searching gaze. "You are one of the most irrational people I have ever met. You believe in psychics and watch reality TV shows. You spend most of your pitiful salary on cheap wine and overpriced shoes. Your IQ is barely above average. In short, you and I seem to have absolutely nothing in common." His face softened as he continued, "By all rights, you should treat me with the same disdain and cruelty that I have suffered from most of the 'average' human beings that I have encountered throughout my life. But you, Penny... you are an outlier, a statistical anomaly. You take care of me when I am sick, and you sing "Soft Kitty" to me. You tried to bolster my self-confidence when I was afraid of speaking in public. You help me without expecting anything in return, and that makes me want to do the same for you. You make me spaghetti with cut-up hot dog pieces, and you are the only person I want for my Halo partner. You drive me places when I need transportation and even though you complain about it, I know you'll still help me the next time I need it." He paused, then continued, "You pushed me toward Amy because you wanted me to be happy in a relationship that fulfills all of my needs. I think the thing you don't realize is that Amy will never be half of what you already are to me. I don't have a word for what you are to me, Penny. I just know that you are the one person in the world that I cannot afford to lose."

Penny sat open-mouthed, staring at Sheldon. _Holy crap on a cracker_ , she thought, _that is the most romantic thing I've ever heard, and it just came from_ Sheldon-frickin'-Cooper. _Any other guy who said half those things to me would be down on one knee with a diamond ring in hand. But this is_ Sheldon _, and he doesn't even realize what he's just said. I think he loves me. He may not be interested in sex or romance, but I think he_ loves _me._

After the fraction of a second in which that thought had crossed her mind, what Penny actually said was, "I care about you too, sweetie." She placed a hand on his arm and leaned over to kiss his cheek.

To her astonishment, a deep red tinge suffused Sheldon's face. "Penny, I would appreciate it if you would restrain yourself from physical demonstrations of your affection," he growled in an unusual tone of voice.

"Come on, Sheldon, didn't you just finish saying how much you like me? You've given me hugs before," she protested, feeling as if someone had just dumped a bucket of cold water on her warm, fuzzy feelings.

"That is irrelevant," he replied haughtily, angling his body away from her. "Penny, what has my life revolved around since I was three years old?" he demanded suddenly.

"Umm… is that a trick question? Physics, science, that sort of thing," she replied, screwing her face up in confusion. _Where was he going with this?_

"Precisely. I have even been known on occasion to say that science is my mistress. But look around, Penny," he cried, as he gestured at the blank purple walls. "No whiteboards, no _Applied Physics Journal_ , no computer or internet, no books or videogames, no distractions of any kind!" He was almost yelling at this point, and he had a look approaching panic on his face. "Without them, I am reduced... _reduced_ , Penny, to the level of the average _Homo sapiens_."

"What does that mean?" she asked with a look of bewilderment on her face.

"It means, Penny," he gritted out as he stared at the walls, "that my self-control is slipping. I have been in the presence of a very attractive woman in complete dishabille every moment of every day for the past ninety-six days. With nothing to elevate my thoughts to higher levels of reason, my primitive instincts are beginning to reassert themselves—a state which I find highly disagreeable and uncomfortable."

"Oh." Penny mulled it over for a few seconds, and then she grinned. "So basically, you think I'm hot."

"I have always found you to be aesthetically pleasing, but in the past, I had my work to focus on. One does not win a Nobel Prize by chasing after anything in a skirt," he added with a sniff.

"Really? So you've actually been aware of girls, but you just ignore them?" Penny asked incredulously. "How's _that_ working for you?"

Her sarcasm went right over his head. "It had been working quite satisfactorily until this ridiculous situation interposed itself on our formerly tranquil and productive lives," he retorted loftily.

"Speak for yourself about productive lives—former Cheesecake Factory waitress here, remember?" Penny quipped.

"As I was saying, I find myself in a very unusual situation where your proximity is neither appropriate nor desirable," Sheldon said.

Penny sighed. "Look, Sheldon. I'm sorry you have to actually deal with your hormones for the first time in your life. And under different circumstances, we might find a fun way to relieve some stress together." She rushed on as he looked shocked. "But since you're _you_ , the best idea I can come up with is this. I'm going to go hang out in the alcove and sing some songs out loud with my fingers in my ears. And you are going to go over to the bath and take care of things. Do you understand what I'm trying to say, sweetie?" she asked hesitantly with a skeptical look on her face. Sheldon could be such a complete innocent about life sometimes, but Penny was really hoping she didn't have to explain further.

To her relief, Sheldon nodded, although a faint tinge of color stained his cheeks as he admitted, "I am not a stranger to the solution you are proposing; however, it seemed inappropriate under the circumstances of our close proximity."

"Aww, Sheldon, deep down inside you somewhere is a real Southern gentleman," Penny commented affectionately.

Then he ruined the moment by adding with a slight whine, "But do you _have_ to sing?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Just for that, I'm going to sing every Garth Brooks song I know. You grew up in Texas, so I know you know country music. You'll have Garth in your head for weeks."

Penny retreated to the alcove, and she did sing Garth Brooks, loudly and deliberately off-key. After all, she couldn't show any sign of weakness when she was in competition with Sheldon. But she knew all the words by heart, so as she sang, she was thinking about what Sheldon had said earlier. _Amy will never be half of what you already are to me. You are the one person I can't afford to lose._ Was it possible that he had simply suppressed any notions of romance the same way he suppressed his hormonal urges? And what would happen if he was losing control of both?


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Okay... deep breath. In the following chapter, one of the characters describes an abusive situation from their past. It's not graphic, but may be too intense for some readers. So if you think you might have a problem with it, just skip this one. Next chapter should be posted in a couple of days._

* * *

"Sheldon, how long have we been here now?" Penny asked one day. She was leaning up against his shoulder as they talked. Sheldon seemed to have resigned himself to having Penny touch him in small ways. She had always been a very physical person, and she needed the reassuring sensation of someone else close by. However, she was still aware of Sheldon's aversion to being touched, and she tried to respect that as much as she could.

Sheldon hesitated. He was certain that the answer would displease her, and he was still wary of the uncontrolled outbursts she had exhibited when they had first arrived.

"Come on, Moonpie, tell me," she demanded, bumping him with her shoulder. He had figured out that this gesture was her way of connecting to him without causing too much physical contact, and he appreciated her consideration. He opened his mouth, about to protest that only his Meemaw was allowed to call him Moonpie. Then he paused, his mouth still open. His Meemaw was light-years away. She probably believed he was dead. Had his family had a funeral for him, or were they still searching? He blinked a few times as he suddenly realized that Penny was shaking his shoulder and calling his name. She sat back with a relieved smile as he focused on her face.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" she asked gently.

"You may call me Moonpie," he replied, leaning away from her touch. Penny dropped her hand and frowned.

"Hey, don't be giving up like that," she protested. He was amazed that once again, Penny had somehow been able to discern what he had been thinking. It was a trait she had in common with his Meemaw, and it seemed even more fitting that Penny should call him by his grandmother's pet name for him.

"Penny, we have been here—wherever _here_ is—for approximately one hundred and twenty-two days. Our friends and family most likely think we are dead. They may have already packed up our belongings and put them in storage. They might have even held a funeral for us."

Penny gasped and turned her face away. Her chin quivered as she tried to process this information. She knew they had been… _lost_ for some time, weeks at least, but she had been deliberately trying not to think about the passage of time. Now, confronted with the reality of their situation, she couldn't stop the tear that rolled down her cheek. Another followed.

Then she said in a choked voice, "They won't have given up on us, Sheldon, I swear. I know, because I would never give up on them."

Sheldon awkwardly extended his arms toward her, and she sniffled and held tightly to him. As she burrowed her face into his shoulder, he tried valiantly to ignore the sensation of her soft curves pressed up against his side. It was a battle he was destined to lose. As if of their own accord, his hands started stroking along her arms. The feel of her skin was mesmerizing. Her head moved against his shoulder, the ends of her hair tickling and teasing as they brushed against his bare chest. He froze as he felt her lips alight on his neck in the lightest of caresses. She worked her way up toward his jaw and murmured his name as she wound a hand around the back of his neck, bringing his face down to meet hers. He knew he had been the one to start this by touching her, and yet he couldn't help the panic welling up within him. He pulled away from her, his breath coming in shallow gasps.

Seeing his distress, Penny was suddenly horrified by what she had done. If Sheldon hadn't pushed her away, she might have completely taken advantage of him. She scrambled back a few paces, mortified. "Sheldon, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you, I swear."

By now, Sheldon had gotten his emotions somewhat under control. It was now or never, he thought. If he could ever overcome his past, the time was now. Penny was the only person he could ever imagine trusting in this way. "Penny, come here," he called softly.

Reluctantly, she drew closer. He reached out and pulled her up against his side with a gentle insistence. He put his arm around her and tucked her head under her chin. She looked up at him in amazement, even as she snuggled against him gratefully, taking advantage of this rare moment of physical affection.

"I am going to tell you a story that only one other person has heard. I was eleven when I left home to pursue my first college degree. After earning one bachelor's and two master's degrees, I was offered a scholarship to the University of Berlin. I was sixteen at the time, and I was looking forward to moving far away from home and truly being on my own. I was cutting ties with my superstitious, redneck past and moving into the circles of the intellectual elite... or at least, that was what I thought at the time."

"For the first couple of years, university was everything I had dreamed. I had absolutely no personal connections to distract me from my studies. The German culture has a marvelous spirit of efficiency and punctuality which I found refreshing. My research was progressing well, and my host family, an elderly professor and his wife, were kind but not overly familiar."

"After I received my first doctoral degree in theoretical physics, I began working on my second doctorate. For the first time, I was assigned to teach undergraduate classes on my own, as a professor instead of a teaching assistant. In my second semester of classes, I had a student named Caitlin."

Penny could feel his body begin to tense up as he said that name.

"Unbeknownst to me, she already had quite the reputation on campus for trying to seduce her professors."

The color drained from Penny's face. She had a feeling she knew where this story was going, and already she wanted to hunt this Caitlin down and go all junior rodeo on her.

"In retrospect," Sheldon continued, "I suspect she had been trying to use her feminine wiles on me all semester. She kept coming to my office on the flimsiest of excuses, making strange comments and giving me peculiar looks." Penny could almost find this part of the story amusing; of course, Sheldon had been completely oblivious to this girl's coming on to him.

Without making eye contact, Sheldon reached over and held Penny's hand tightly. "One night during finals week," he continued in a low voice, "I was home by myself. My hosts had gone out for dinner, and as usual, I declined their invitation to join them. As I entered my bedroom, _she_ was there, stretched out across my bed wearing only her undergarments. At first, I was angry that she had violated my privacy, and I ordered her out of my room. She told me that she wanted… wanted to have coitus with me. I flatly refused, and that was when she told me that if I didn't do what she said, she would tell everyone I had raped her."

"Oh god," Penny whispered, horrified, as she squeezed Sheldon's hand so tightly she must be cutting off his circulation.

"I wasn't completely naïve. I knew she could claim rape, but that medical tests would show that nothing of the sort had happened. However, I couldn't risk the damage to my professional reputation, and I thought that coitus was just a biological function. So I—I followed her instructions and undressed. She climbed on top of me and…"

Tears were streaming down Penny's' face as she squeezed his hand in both of hers, wishing there was something else she could do.

Sheldon swallowed hard several times and swiped at his eyes. He cleared his throat and was finally able to continue. "After it happened, I apparently threw out the clothes I had been wearing and the bedding and locked myself in my room. I was in a catatonic state when my hosts found me, or so I was told. I don't remember that part. I was committed to a psychiatric ward for a number of weeks. After that, the university scholarship committee insisted that I spend the next six months under the care of a psychiatrist. During that time, I came to the conclusion that his methodology was ludicrous and counter-productive. I finally decided it was best to not have anything to do with people anymore. As soon as I finished my second doctorate, I left Germany. I moved back to the States, but as far away as possible from my family. That's how I ended up at Caltech."

"Oh Sheldon, I am so sorry that happened to you. I didn't know. I promise I won't touch you anymore…"

Penny's words stopped as Sheldon gently cupped her cheek and wiped away a tear with his thumb. She stared at him, dumbstruck.

"For years, I have allowed myself to be controlled by one emotion: fear. I considered myself a purely logical person, while living in a state of self-delusion. Now, I feel like the worst has already happened. I've had everything taken away from me, everything but you. And I don't want to live in fear anymore. I have feelings for you, and I need to stop pretending they don't exist." With that, he leaned over and kissed her.

Penny's heart had been breaking as Sheldon told his story, and now she felt it swell with love and pride for him as he took a huge step forward. She kissed him back, sweet and slow at first, but soon they were both breathing heavily as the kiss deepened and Penny's hands roamed over Sheldon's chest. She finally broke away, blushing.

"I think that's enough for now," she said quietly, feeling embarrassed by her eager response to him.

"I don't want you to stop," Sheldon said.

She pulled back and searched his face for some clue to what he was thinking. "What do you mean?" she whispered. She thought she knew what he wanted, but she needed to hear it in his own words.

"I have come to know you better than I ever imagined I would know another person, and I admire you for your inner strength and optimism. I care deeply for you, and I have entrusted you with secrets I never thought I would tell another person. I've noticed that you have come to rely on me more as well, and you seem to take comfort in physical contact with me. I think we can help each other. I want to..." He hesitated. All the words he typically used for what he was suggesting were blunt, ugly words describing only the physical act. Coitus was what he had experienced in the past. He was beginning to understand why there were so many terms for sex; the act was fraught with emotional meaning.

"I want to be intimate with you," he continued softly. "If you will have me. I want to make love to you."

Her green eyes met his gaze very seriously, shining with an emotion he couldn't decipher. She reached out and took his hand in both of hers.

"I want you to know that I think you're very brave," she whispered. "I want you to feel safe with me. We can stop at any time, just say the word."

He nodded. "I trust you, Penny."

It was at these words that her heart did a little flip. She knew that feeling; knew it, and was scared to death of it. It was the feeling she got every time she was falling for a guy.

This time, when she reached for him, neither of them pulled away.

* * *

 _A/N: Am I ducking any shoes yet? Don't hate me for my story about Sheldon's past! Any of you ever research mysophobia? The main trigger for it is sexual abuse. This was actually one of the least awful scenarios that I came up with._


	7. Chapter 7

When Penny woke up the next morning, Sheldon was already up and soaking in the fluid-filled depression that they referred to as their bathtub. Stretching, she padded over to the pool and slipped in beside him.

"Good morning, sweetie," she said, leaning over to kiss him.

To her surprise, he leaned back, avoiding her affectionate gesture. Her heart sank as he said seriously, "Penny, there is something important which we need to discuss."

She sank down in the blue fluid until it rose to cover her chest. "What do you want to talk about?" she asked in a low voice, not meeting his gaze.

For her, last night had been amazing in a way she had never experienced before. She usually had sex just for fun. But Sheldon's trust in her made what transpired between them something she would always remember and cherish. He had been awkward and unsure at first. She had to work to rein in her "big ol' five" impulses. Instead, she allowed him to take the lead and exorcise the demons of his past. It hadn't been about her or what she wanted. The second time, he'd asked her to show him how to touch her, how to make her body respond to him. He didn't have to do that, and she knew he was making a sacrifice for her, fighting to overcome his aversion to germs and touching. But now, just a few hours later, he was giving her the "we need to talk" speech. Had he changed his mind already? Could he really just pretend they hadn't slept together? Penny was sure she couldn't compartmentalize her life that easily.

"Our decision to have intercourse yesterday was an impulsive, emotional decision that was ill-considered. I… we were remiss in not weighing certain factors which could have portentous consequences for our future, such as it is. Please understand that when I say we should not repeat yesterday's actions, I do so with a certain amount of regret."

"In English, Sheldon," Penny said tiredly, looking away so he wouldn't see that tears were once more brimming in her eyes. "Why don't you...why don't you want to have sex again?" She had almost slipped up and said, "Why don't you want me?" It didn't matter how he phrased it, his words sounded like a rejection, like every other guy who had taken what he wanted from her and then ditched her.

He fidgeted a little and looked away. "I desire you, not just for coitus but for the intimacy which it has lent to our... friendship. Abstinence has suddenly become an unappealing prospect, and yet as a logical person, I cannot allow that intimacy to continue because of the risks which it presents to you."

"I don't understand. What risks?" Penny asked.

"During the time we have been here, it has become obvious to me that our captors have somehow altered your normal menstrual cycle."

Penny nostrils flared and she crossed her arms, a sure sign that she was not pleased he had brought up this particular topic. It was true; she hadn't had a period the whole time they'd been prisoners. It was something which made her feel both relieved and alarmed.

He continued, "I must consider the possibility that our captors have somehow altered your hormonal cycle in the hopes that we would reproduce. Even if that is not the case, they have given us only the most basic level of care, which may not suffice if you became pregnant."

"Oh." Her eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "So it really isn't me; you're just afraid you'll knock me up? That's kind of sweet—twisted, but sweet," Penny said with a tremulous smile. She took a deep breath. "Look, Sheldon, there's something I need to tell you. You told me your big secret yesterday, so I guess it's my turn."

He looked at her quizzically, and she found herself suddenly unable to meet his eyes as she confessed, "I can't have kids."

He stared at her, speechless for a moment, considering all the implications. Finally, he asked, "Are you certain? On what are you basing this assumption?"

"It's not an assumption," she answered. "When I was in high school, I was... well, let's just say I was a little wild. I took a lot of stupid risks. I once told Leonard I had a pregnancy scare when I was sixteen." She met his eyes, gauging his reaction. When he didn't scold her or insult her, she continued. "I didn't know how to tell him the rest of the story. A few months after the pregnancy scare, I started having some, you know, female problems. I knew something was wrong, but I thought if I ignored it, maybe it would go away on its own. Instead, it got worse. Finally, I had one of my friends take me to the free clinic on the other side of town. The doctor told me that I had an STD. Because the infection had gone untreated for so long, there was a lot of scarring." She drew a hand across her eyes, wiping away the moisture that threatened to spill over. "When I went to other doctors later, they all told me the same thing. I probably won't ever get pregnant, and if I did, I wouldn't be able to carry the baby to term."

"So am I to understand that Leonard was unaware of your infertility?" he asked.

Penny winced a little at his blunt words. "I told you it was my biggest secret," she said quietly. "You're now the second person in the world who knows, besides my friend who drove me to the clinic. I think the only reason I could even bring myself to tell you now is that it's hopeless, isn't it? We're never going to see our friends or families again. And now you probably hate me for upsetting you and lying to your best friend."

Sheldon reached over and delicately laid a hand on her shoulder. "If you have confided this to me a number of months ago, it would have put me in a very difficult position. You know I'm incapable of keeping secrets. But you are in danger of letting your past experiences dictate your present behavior, which is exactly what I was doing. If I can make a conscious choice to abandon that fear, then I believe you are capable—more capable than I—of doing the same. Of course, I don't hate you."

She leaned against him and reveled in the comfort she derived from his presence. "Was that a compliment, Dr. Cooper?" she asked with a smirk.

"Yes. I believe I have experienced a paradigm shift. After I told you about my ordeal in Germany, you didn't mock me or treat me with disdain. Your kindness and acceptance are two of your many qualities which I have come to admire, and through those traits, you helped me accomplish what months of intensive psychotherapy could not. I see now that acknowledging your strengths does not diminish my own."

She smiled up at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "You know, getting compliments from you kind of makes me hot." Sheldon often didn't "get" idioms, but he soon realized exactly what she meant. He decided that he could be persuaded to start paying her compliments more often.

* * *

Coitus changed their relationship slowly and subtly. Sheldon was musing over this idea one morning as he was lying next to Penny. He was usually the first to wake, and this was his time for introspection. She stirred without rousing as she slept with her arm across his chest and her legs tangled with his. He lay quietly for some time, thinking about the feeling of her hair feathering over his arm and listening to the gentle susurration of her breathing. He wasn't sure when her touch had become welcome, but he knew the change in his mindset must have begun sometime before the alteration in their relationship paradigm. They had been lovers for approximately eighteen days and twelve hours. Shortly after their first time together, he had asked her to define their new relationship status. Would she consider them to be dating? She had laughed at him, and for a moment, he had been offended. Then she commented sadly that they could hardly call it dating, as there was no place they could go on a date. That much was obvious, but he still felt a need to classify, quantify and label everything. After all, he was still a scientist, even without his computer and whiteboards. Penny had given him a little smile and told him it really didn't matter. He wasn't sure what she was thinking, but then she kissed him, drew him back to their alcove and distracted him in a very pleasant fashion.

He remember that he had once told Penny he loved her. At the time, he hadn't meant it in a romantic sense, but still, it was a sentiment he had only ever expressed to his mother, his sister, and his Meemaw. It had happened after a particularly trying evening spent with Amy, when she had once again been attempting to "fix" him. That instance perfectly illustrated the difference between Amy and Penny. Penny would trade insults with him, but she accepted him the way he was. It dawned on him with a feeling akin to shock that Amy had been trying to force him to be the kind of boyfriend that she wanted. Like two puzzle pieces that didn't quite match, she thought if she could just remove the parts she didn't like and add what she wanted, then they would fit together. Penny, with her acceptance and respect for him, had created an environment into which he wanted to belong, for which he was willing to make some changes while still being true to himself. Penny had called him brave, while his friends had always mocked his celibacy mercilessly, not understanding what held him back. But her love had finally given him the freedom to conquer his fears. He discovered that with someone like Penny, someone so kind and open and giving, sex could actually be something amazing and beautiful instead of something scary and distasteful. He only wished there were some way he could repay her for everything she had done for him.

* * *

Penny woke that same morning with troubled thoughts. She'd had a vivid dream where she had been trying to seduce an oblivious Sheldon as he scribbled away at a whiteboard. It didn't take a beautiful-mind genius to figure out what that meant. She didn't know where she stood with Sheldon. In all of her previous relationships, she knew what her role was. She was the hot chick. It didn't matter that she wasn't smart, talented or successful; men wanted her for her face and figure. But when she took a good hard look at her life, she was just a waitress who struggled to pay her bills and spent too much money on wine and designer shoes in order to feel better about herself.

Leonard had been her safety net. She had always dated hot guys, who dumped her when someone hotter came along, or cheated on her like Kurt did. When she started dating Leonard, she realized that here was someone who would never leave her. Sure, he was needy, but for a time that was exactly what she wanted. His over-eager attentions were a flattering sop to her dwindling self-esteem. Later, Wil Wheaton's words made her realize that she didn't really love Leonard, and she tried to do the right thing. But almost two years later, he was still pining for her, and her acting career was a bad joke, so she had agreed to his beta test idea. Then he kept pressuring her for more. First he wanted her to say she loved him, and then he wanted to get engaged. So she started following her mother's example, drinking to smooth over the problems in a relationship… or maybe to help her ignore them. She had always wanted to be strong and independent like her father, but now she could see she had been sliding into her mother's way of dealing with life.

Now, she was in this weird, undefined relationship with Sheldon. He seemed to enjoy sex as much as the next man, and when she awoke in the middle of the night, he was often holding her in his arms. And she now knew more about him than anyone else she had ever known. But did those things add up to a real relationship? What did Sheldon see in her? Did he think of this as some sort of friends-with-benefits arrangement? A few days after they had started sleeping together, Sheldon had asked her if they were dating. She had laughed at him. She knew it was a mistake when she saw the look on his face, but honestly, two people turning to each other for comfort while they were literally locked up together was about as far from the idea of dating as you could get. She was fairly certain that if there had been a whiteboard in the room, Sheldon would have never even felt the need to talk to her.

"This would've never happened between us if we were back in our old lives in Pasadena, would it?" she murmured wistfully. She spoke aloud, and although she hadn't been specifically addressing Sheldon, he was right beside her, and his exceptional hearing caught her words. His answer confirmed her fears.

"I calculate the odds of such an occurrence to be almost infinitesimally small," he replied after a moment, not realizing what had prompted her question.

It was times like that when she was almost glad she had given up hope of ever getting home.


	8. Chapter 8

Sheldon was fascinated by the way his interactions with Penny had changed. Before, they had just spent time talking or playing word games to pass the endless hours of their captivity. Now, he spent time learning about her, trying to truly understand her. He listened to her for hours, whether it was to her thoughts on why Radiohead was such a great band or why platform shoes should never come back into style. What he had once found to be inane, pointless chatter, he now realized was another facet of the mystery that was Penny—a mystery he now pursued as assiduously as he had once sought the secrets of the universe.

Part of this mystery was his own reaction to these changes. He kept expecting the familiar feelings of panic to well up in him, especially when he was in close contact with Penny. By all rights, some part of his mind ought to be shutting down, unable to cope, much as he had done in the first weeks of their captivity. As days turned into weeks, he had to conclude that he had somehow weathered these momentous changes without panicking. He wondered if perhaps he simply had become inured to shock, or if physical intimacy was a natural result of months of co-dependence. He also couldn't discount the possibility that Penny had been the catalyst. Maybe he could only let his guard down with her because he had been convinced of her complete acceptance of him.

As Sheldon became accustomed to this newest paradigm alteration, he found himself doing things he could have never imagined in his former life. There was a deep contentment that he had never known which only manifested when he held Penny in his arms. He was learning her and everything about her. Since physical affection was obviously very important to her, he studied it like he would a foreign language. It became a point of pride for him when he could made Penny cry out by caressing her with his hands or mouth. He carefully catalogued her every response to his touch and analyzed the experience. Every time they were intimate, he endeavored to improve on his technique. This was a challenge, however, because there always seemed to be this moment when he was no longer capable of rational thought, when his mind simply gave up any pretense of higher function and surrendered to the flood of sensation. When he said as much, Penny laughed and told him that was the way it was supposed to be.

She struggled with doubts about the two of them as well. He knew this, not from any sudden leap of insight, but because Penny now told him everything. He still had a hard time reading her emotions. It was one of the areas in which his prodigious and yet woefully inadequate mind had let him down once again. He had always known that he wasn't the smartest person on earth, but he had always been more intelligent than everyone he met. That apparently neither he nor Penny passed some basic litmus test of intelligence galled, all the more so whenever he saw her struggling to remain cheerful for his sake. Perhaps, in his previous arrogance, one might argue that he deserved to be taken down a peg or two, as the expression went. But in his mind, she had done nothing to merit such treatment.

Much as he tried to reassure her of his attachment to her, he knew as well as she did that it might be just a product of the hostage situation in which they found themselves. He didn't like to think of it that way, because Penny had become so much a part of him. The only time his doubts were stilled was that moment of ecstasy when his thoughts quieted entirely. Sometimes, he found himself wishing that he could stop over-analyzing everything. It would be simpler if he could just live in the moment and not wonder whether they had been manipulated into an intimate relationship as part of some esoteric psychological experiment.

Weeks passed in a monotonous blur. Sheldon was aware that they had been imprisoned for the better part of a year, as he reckoned time. Earlier in their captivity, he had tried to distract himself by calculating how fast the alien's vessel might travel through space and how far they might have traveled. He didn't think about it anymore. Earth, their home, was just a distant memory. He was convinced this would be their existence, trapped in this ridiculous purple cage until either their captors no longer had use for them, or they died of old age. Instead of trying to come up with futile ideas for escape, he focused on their relationship. He and Penny dredged up old stories or jokes from memory. She sometimes flubbed the punchlines, but retaliated to his teasing by complaining that all his physics jokes weren't funny at all. Sheldon had explained particle physics as far as she was capable of comprehending it. He had also begun teaching her the rudiments of German, and they spent some time every day conversing in that language. Penny had taught him the lyrics to dozens of popular songs, and when they sang together, he hardly noticed when her voice wandered out of key. She also taught him every yoga and pilates pose she remembered, although for reasons he couldn't quite understand, that often led to a very different and much more enjoyable type of activity.

They had changed physically as well. Both of them were leaner. Every ounce of spare flesh had been stripped from their frames due to their carefully controlled, unvarying diet. Penny's darker roots had grown out a few inches, while Sheldon's hair now reached past his chin. For a while, his lengthening hair had driven him to distraction. With no means of trimming it, he had begun to toss his head to get it out of his face. However, this habit hadn't lasted more than a few days. Penny, annoyed by his actions, told him he looked like a preteen girl trying to flirt with her first crush. To really drive home the point, she started calling him "Shelly" whenever he tossed his head back. It didn't take long for her to break him of that affectation. She had a harder time convincing him not to scratch at his jawline as his beard slowly filled in. Eventually, he got used to it. Bizarrely, it helped when Penny told him he would fit right in at the next Renaissance Faire he attended. He appreciated her sense of humor even though by this time, neither of them expected to ever return home.

Sheldon's newfound equanimity was shaken when it became his turn to see Penny taken away by their abductors. He recognized the mood-altering drug they pumped into the air to make them docile, and he tried to fight against it. His panic almost pushed through the haze in his mind, but it was too late. The squat purple forms came, pulled her out of his slackened embrace, and dragged her away like a piece of refuse. She was gone. As the drug faded from his system, his mind raced in a million directions, trying to form a plan of action. He considered and discarded dozens of ideas, each more improbable than the last. As the hours passed, he began to despair. He had no resources. Their prison was near perfect in its inescapability. Compared to their alien captors, he simply wasn't smart enough. He had never felt so helpless, so inadequate, in all his life. When he again heard the hissing sound of chemicals being pumped into the air, he felt an enormous wave of relief at the thought that Penny might be returned to him. He couldn't stop himself from looking around for some sort of weapon to use in her defense. But as before, the aerated drugs clouded his thought processes and made him docile. He watched, bemused, as two aliens carried Penny into the room and laid her on the floor.

He fought his way out of his mental stupor as he crawled over to her. He didn't know what they had done to her, or how an invasive procedure might have affected her. What if she wasn't the same person when she woke up? That thought frightened him more deeply than he could ever remember feeling before. He carried her back to their alcove, adrenaline-fueled panic lending him strength. Curling up around her, he sang "Soft Kitty" and brushed away the moisture which trailed down the side of his face. He no longer questioned his attachment to her. Physics had once been his mistress; now Penny was his everything.

After a few minutes, Penny stirred and opened her eyes. As soon as she saw Sheldon, she seized him in a trembling embrace and began to cry. He held her close and murmured, "There, there, Sheldon's here," until her sobs quieted. After she was calm, she looked at him intently and laid a hand along his cheek.

"I can't promise I'll never go away again," she said huskily. "All I can promise is that I'll never want to."

Somehow, she had divined exactly what Sheldon was thinking and said exactly what he needed to hear. "I don't ever want to lose you," he confessed as he tightened his arms around her, trying to reassure her with his embrace. He held her close, thinking that when Penny had been taken, he'd felt as if a part of himself had been ripped away. Is this love? he wondered. He'd never been in love before, never even come close to feeling anything like this for another person. He decided it must be something else, as he had seen his friends fall in and out of love many times. Surely if they had ever felt this way about another person, they would have moved heaven and earth to make the relationship work, no matter what. He suspected that he and Penny now existed in a type of symbiotic relationship, rarely experienced by ordinary people and brought on by stress and co-dependence. When he phrased it that way, it sounded dysfunctional, even in his mind. But her disappearance had cemented one thing firmly in his mind: he had learned that he could be perfectly content—happy even—with nothing but her. He had somehow, through this latest emotional trauma, pared his life down to the essentials and learned that all he truly needed was her.

Over the next few days, Sheldon began to realize that something about Penny was indeed different. The tiny scar near the base of her skull was his first clue as to what their jailers had done to her. Located near the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions, the scar indicated that their captors were experimenting with her emotional abilities. The results were subtle but became clear to him over the next several days. Penny had become not a mind reader, but something incredibly close to it. She could often tell exactly what he was feeling or knew what he was thinking. He surmised she had become more adept at interpreting the micro-expressions on his face or his body language. This might have made an average person uncomfortable, but for Sheldon, dealing with his emotions was still a novel experience. He found it extremely helpful that Penny could read him so well. She dealt with the changes remarkably well, saying only that it could have been much worse. They were both well aware of how little control they had over their existence. Sheldon may have determined to stop letting fear govern his actions, but the more he came to care for Penny, the harder it was for him to keep that promise he made to himself.


	9. Chapter 9

Fifty-eight days after Penny's procedure, (not that Sheldon really cared to keep track of the days anymore; it was just the way his mind worked), something unusual happened which would have an earth-shattering impact on the two. Sheldon, with his superior hearing, noticed the sound first. He might have described it as a heavy squishing noise, although that didn't really do the strange noise justice. As he looked around in surprise, one of the walls of their enclosure suddenly slid away to reveal a rectangular opening. Three alien forms appeared. They were squat, nearly as wide as they were tall, but they would barely have come up to Penny's shoulder. Flexible limbs like tentacles sprouted from both ends of their bodies, long ones on top and dozens of short ones at the bottom that they apparently used for locomotion. Two large dark eyes rose above the body on eyestalks. They had no other visible features. Their skin glistened wetly and was a deep purple-black color. All three of them were wearing some sort of suit or garment which was pale blue and wrapped around their midsections, decorated with mysterious insignia. He realized that even though they had seen the aliens before, his recollection of them was hazy and indistinct. He wondered how they had managed that, hating the idea that his memory may have been altered.

All this passed through his mind in less than a second as he moved protectively in front of Penny. Even though the gesture was useless in the face of the alien's advanced technology, his instincts still screamed at him to safeguard her in any way he could. One of the aliens moved its limbs in a ponderous fashion. A confused jumble of impressions, oddly skewed pictures and emotions flooded into his mind. Somehow, he was able to interpret most of it into human concepts and put it into words. He could understand them only with intense concentration and some degree of uncertainty.

"It's speaking to me," he told Penny. Translating for her, he said, "He says this is sub-associate… something unpronounceable which I suppose is a name… and he is being disciplined for breaking protocol. I believe they are referring to the one in the middle. The sub-associate created new neural pathways in your brain, allowing you to reach your full potential of emotional intelligence," he said, eyes widening in alarm. It had been one thing to suspect mental tampering, but quite another to have it confirmed, especially now in the light of his new feelings for her.

The alien was speaking into his mind again, and he quickly relayed the information as best as he could. "Further recombination of our DNA created a being with more than two types of intelligence, which means that under their laws, humans must now be classified as sentient. His subsequent experiments with our DNA were considered illegal, and so he has been punished with demotion. He says…" Sheldon broke off, his face white with shock.

"What?" Penny hissed.

"He says that as a sentient species, we now have the right to request to be returned to our planet of origin. He also says that we have to decide if we want to keep the… offspring?" With that news, Sheldon fainted dead away.

Penny was trembling violently as she knelt by Sheldon's side, shaking him, trying to get him to wake up. _It's a mistake; it must be a mistake. Sheldon heard them wrong_ , she thought frantically. With a deep bullfrog-like grunt that seemed to express disapproval, one of the bulky forms approached. Penny quailed inwardly, but she held her ground. The alien waved a thin wand-like device over Sheldon's face, and he immediately sat up, gasping.

"Are you alright?" she asked, clinging tightly to his hand.

"No," he responded succinctly, still looking very pale.

She clutched his arm tightly. "Sheldon, if they grew a kid from our DNA, we have to get it back."

He looked at her, wide-eyed and shaking. "Their mental constructs are so different from ours that I have no idea if they mean a single-celled zygote or dozens of fully-grown clones."

Penny's vision seemed to darken for a moment as she considered the enormity of what he had just said. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head. "It doesn't matter how many or what age, we can't leave… uh, whoever it is in their hands. I could never live with myself if I let that happen."

Sheldon swallowed hard. "I'm not certain that I share your conviction, but this is a decision which cannot be made by only one of us. I will rely on your superior grasp of social ethics to guide me."

He stood up shakily and faced the aliens. "Any offspring that were cloned or produced through genetic manipulation belong to the parents of such offspring." He paused, nodded, and then asked in a less certain voice, "How many offspring are there? Um... yes, that will be acceptable." The aliens gestured again, and then turned and exited through the wall once more.

"What did they say?" Penny cried.

"There… there is only one offspring... child," he stammered, his usual loquaciousness deserting him. "It's young. That's all I can understand. They will be bringing him... or her... to us shortly. It's ours, Penny. But what are we going to do with it?"

Penny shook her head. She didn't have an answer. Clinging tightly to Sheldon, both of them struggled to comprehend this strange turn of events. Penny still wasn't sure that it wasn't all some sort of experiment to see how humans reacted under stress. She knew he believed them, but she didn't agree. Her new-found abilities have given her no insights into the aliens, although perhaps that was just because they were so fundamentally different.

Part of the puzzle was solved within the hour, as another blue-clad figure re-entered the room, carrying a small bundle wrapped up in a lavender blanket. Penny stood and approached the alien, trying desperately to control her quaking limbs. He (or she or it—Sheldon had explained he used the masculine pronoun when translating merely as a convenience) lifted a thin metallic wand, and a light mist drifted down over Penny. As she stood blinking uncertainly, the alien unceremoniously deposited the bundle into her arms and departed. Penny carefully moved the blanket aside to reveal a tiny face topped with wisps of black hair. Sheldon had come to stand beside her, and he was staring down at the baby looking as shell-shocked as she felt. Dark-fringed eyes blinked open sleepily, and the infant gazed at them with innocent blue eyes.

He wrapped an arm around her waist while she carefully supporting the baby in her arms. "No more fear," he whispered in a less-than-steady voice. He could feel her shaking, and pulled her close to his side. Penny nodded uncertainly as he reached out a trembling hand to touch the tiny clenched fist that poked out of the blankets.

"Boy or girl?" he asked after studying the infant for several more seconds. A quick peek under the wrappings revealed what Penny had already intuited.

"It's a boy," she whispered. "Sheldon, we have a son."

The new parents might have stood staring at the baby for hours, but he soon woke and began fussing.

"What does he want? What do I do?" Penny asked, sounding panicked.

Sheldon eyed the child uneasily. "Logically, he is most likely either hungry or—" He broke off, because the baby, cradled in Penny's arms, had turned his head toward her and was desperately rooting around her chest, making unmistakable sucking motions with his mouth. Penny had frozen, with a horrified deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. The baby was starting to work up into a full-blown cry.

"Surely, if the aliens have remanded him to our care, they must have anticipated some way of providing for his care," Sheldon frowned. He looked around the room as if a bottle of formula would appear out of thin air. Then he heard a muffled shriek from Penny. As he turned back to her, she abruptly thrust the wailing infant into his arms and walked as far away as she could get in their purple-walled room. Baffled, he watched her pace for a few moments with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Penny, I believe the infant was just obeying instinct when he attempted to breastfeed," Sheldon ventured, not understanding why she was so upset. She shook her head wordlessly and sat down at the edge of the larger pool they called their bathtub. He approached cautiously, the baby still crying loudly. Penny had her back to him, but he saw her wipe her face with the backs of her hands. "Give him to me," she said with a strange catch in her voice. As he drew nearer, he began to understand the source of her emotional outburst. White fluid was slowly welling from the pink tips of her breasts. He watched in fascination as she reached for the baby and held him close. After a few frantic rooting motions, the infant found was he was looking for and latched on, sucking noisily. Penny winced and then drew in a long, shuddering breath. Sheldon saw a tear roll down her face. He sat down near her but not within arm's length.

"I suppose this is evidence that yet another procedure was performed on you without your knowledge," he said. It wasn't much of an ice breaker, but he didn't know how to address her turbulent emotions, nor could he relate to what she was experiencing.

Her face contorted into a grimace. "Yeah, when that alien handed me the baby, he misted me like a plant. I guess now I know why. That and him—" looking down at the dark-haired infant who was now blissfully nursing, "—was just the last straw. I guess when the aliens came in and said we were people and that they were taking us home, I thought it was all over. I just wanted to leave this nightmare and go back to our normal lives. Instead, we're still trapped here, and nothing has changed except now I suddenly have a baby to care for. I'm scared, and I'm freaking out more than a little. I don't want to be a mom, but then again, a tiny part of me feels like this is a miracle, the child I thought I could never have. I It's too much. I don't know how to process this. Part of me thinks those aliens are just messing with our minds again."

Sheldon considered for a moment. "I suppose it is a possibility, although we can't assume that, since they clearly operate under a very different paradigm than we do. It's unfortunate that you weren't able to communicate directly with him," he mused. "Perhaps your newly enhanced abilities would allow you to confirm whether they are truthful, rather like Deanna Troi on _Star Trek: The Next Generation_."

Penny almost smiled at that. The man did love his sci-fi shows. "It's hardly like I have ESP, sweetie," she objected.

"All we know for certain is that you have displayed an uncanny ability to perceive my emotions, such as they are. Perhaps you may in time, or with certain people, be able to read minds."

She frowned. "As many jerks as I've known, I don't think I'd want that ability."

She looked down at the baby, who had fallen asleep while they were talking. She gently detached him from her breast. His lip quivered, but he didn't wake. "He looks like you," she said softly, although her voice cracked as she spoke.

Swallowing hard, he edged closer and gently stroked a wisp of dark hair. In the past, he had expressed a desire to have children someday, but it had always been a vague, hypothetical idea. Now, confronted with an actual helpless infant, he was completely at a loss. The child couldn't be reasoned with for years. How on earth could he function as a parent? His gaze shifted back to Penny. Despite her fear and sense of being overwhelmed, she had still taken care of the baby, whether by instinct or obligation or compassion. He felt humbled that for all his intelligence and education, so far Penny was the one who showed a greater aptitude for parenting.

"We should give him a name," Penny said suddenly. "We have to come up with something else to call him besides Baby."

Her suggestion distracted them from the weightier problems which they faced. As they debated various names, Sheldon found he was enjoying the trite conflict. He liked Albert (for Einstein); Penny countered with Devon. Then he suggested Nikola (Tesla), Tycho (Brahe) and Bruce (Wayne). Penny liked Jonah, Mason and Ryan, but inevitably, Sheldon hated all her favorites. The baby woke as they were arguing, and Penny turned him so he could nurse on the other side. She seemed like an old pro at handling the baby already, but maybe she was just too distracted by her heated discussion with Sheldon to care. Finally, he put forth the name Stephen. He had mixed feelings about Hawking, who was undoubtedly one of the greatest physicists of all time but had also clashed with him in the past. Penny thought for a moment and said she didn't mind Stephen, and just like that, their baby had a name.

Stephen was starting to drift off to sleep again when Sheldon reminded her that babies need to be burped. After a few false starts, Stephen finally let out such a loud belch that Penny started laughing. Even Sheldon was startled into something a bit more like a real laugh than his usual breathy gasp.

"You're handling this better than I thought," she commented a bit wistfully. "Do you think you can get used to the idea of being a parent?"

"As long as I have you, I believe we can manage," he said. His trust in her had her reaching for him. She had a deep need to be held and reassured. They laid Stephen to one side of their little purple alcove as they talked and held each other. Their conversation led naturally to intimacy, with Sheldon moving deep inside of her as she arched against him as if she could never get enough of him.


	10. Chapter 10

Days turned into weeks as Sheldon and Penny waited to be returned to Earth. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge the very real possibility that their captors had just been deceiving them or conducting some sort of experiment. They didn't have any other alien visitors, and the conditions of their confinement remained exactly the same, except for the sudden appearance of little Stephen. After the first few days, by tacit agreement, they stopped talking about whether they were going to be taken home.

Stephen was a welcome distraction. There were a million times that Penny wished she had a camera as Sheldon held his son and sang to him. (He had a much better singing voice than hers.) The baby, at first barely able to hold up his head or focus his eyes, seemed fascinated. Sheldon was an endless fount of information about child development and parenting, and Penny was grateful for his knowledge, which no longer seemed like useless facts.

Before a week had passed, she knew that she already loved Stephen. Maybe it was just because he needed her and was so tiny and helpless, or maybe it was easier to admit she loved this miniature version of Sheldon than to face her more complicated feelings for his father. Whatever the reason, Penny almost didn't want to go home. Every day, she and Sheldon talked together, and played and bonded with their son. At night, he slept cradled safely between the two of them, where Penny could nurse him when he was hungry without hardly having to wake up.

Finally, another rotund purple alien appeared one day, dumped a bundle just inside the walls of their enclosure, and left. Upon investigation, the bundle turned out to be their clothes from the night they were abducted. As Penny and Sheldon pulled on their now loose and yet oddly confining clothing, they finally allowed themselves to hope. Yet Penny was now facing a whole new set of problems. She had no idea what she would say to Leonard when they got back. Technically, both she and Sheldon had cheated on their significant others. She didn't think Leonard wouldn't cut her any slack just because she had given up on ever seeing him again.

She glanced over at Sheldon and then cast a critical eye over the two of them. After almost a year of captivity, Sheldon had a full beard and his hair brushed his shoulders. (She liked to call it his Ren Faire look.) Her own hair was most likely showing several inches of darker blonde hair, her natural color. They had both lost weight due to a lack of interest in their bland, unvarying food supply. Because she was nursing, Penny's bra was too small, and her camisole stretched tight across her chest. She and Sheldon both had ragged nails, since their only options had been to bite their fingernails or let them grow into claws. Although it wasn't noticeable under her clothing, she had hair growing in places she had been shaving since she was twelve, not that Sheldon had seemed to mind.

In the grand scheme of things, she supposed it was silly to worry about how they looked. Sheldon had explained to her that, given the cavalier attitude their abductors took toward their welfare, he had doubts about being returned to the right place, let alone the right time. When she asked him what he meant about the right time, he explained that the aliens must have some sort of faster-than-light technology, which meant that they were traveling outside the normal passage of time. Theoretically, they could arrive on Earth hundreds of years in the future or sometime in its far distant past. The idea frightened Penny deeply, although she tried to hide it for Sheldon's sake. Now, she clung to him, sensing his fear and apprehension as keenly as her own. She could tell he was trying to be strong for her sake, and the thought crossed her mind that no one had ever tried to protect her the way that he had. Watching the way he cradled their son in his arms, she felt some of her fear dissipate. She knew that he was no longer the neurotic child-man he had been before the abduction, and she trusted that he would do his best to take care of them both.

After another interminable wait, another alien appeared, or perhaps it was the same one: they had no way of knowing. It gestured unmistakably and then glided backward, leaving the door open. Sheldon put his arm around Penny's shoulders while she cradled Stephen close, and the little family made their way forward through curved purple hallways, following their guide. They saw no other aliens or any creatures, sentient or not, as they walked the corridors. After several confusing turns through identical-looking hallways, they entered a room where waist-high purple structures, sparkling with inlaid metal, formed a complicated grid. The alien extended a slender tentacle toward Stephen; Penny gasped and pulled away, shielding her baby with her body. Sheldon was instantly in front of her, reassuring her.

"Don't worry, Penny; they're not going to take Stephen. The alien says that we have to return the blanket because it's made of materials foreign to our planet." Penny allowed herself a moment to lean into Sheldon's steadying warmth before she nodded and unwrapped the blanket from Stephen's body. Instantly, he started to fret, and Sheldon quickly pulled off his own t-shirt and used it to swaddle his son. In a moment, Stephen was snug and happy again. Following the alien's gestures (and perhaps subliminal instructions to Sheldon), they stepped into the middle of the grid.

Just then, there was a sudden commotion. Another squat, purple form rushed into the room. Penny stepped back in alarm, again trying to shield Stephen from view. The first alien moved to block the second one, and a silent argument appeared to take place, with much arm-waving and gesticulating. As Penny watched, she began to understand something of the discussion. The first one was offended and seemed to think the other was doing something inappropriate. The second one was determined, and she got a strong sense of embarrassment, guilt and hope from him. She frowned, concentrating hard. It seemed like the second one was trying to fix something or right a wrong.

Eventually, the first alien stepped aside, gesturing abruptly toward the humans. The second alien approached them, and its eyestalks strained forward toward Sheldon, who gasped. Then it produced a thin metallic wand and waved it over Penny. She recoiled, but the alien had already turned and left as quickly as it arrived. Penny turned to Sheldon to ask what the alien had said to him, but at that moment, she was seized by an unexpected sensation. She felt as though her whole body was being squeezed down into a single point. When the spots cleared from her vision, she found she was standing on a dark but familiar street. They were home.

* * *

The transition from alien vessel to Pasadena was instantaneous, and Sheldon found he was rather disappointed at the lack of shimmering light beams or warbling sound effects. The only effect translocation had on him was to make him feel momentarily dizzy and nauseated. He reached out an arm to steady Penny in case she was feeling the same. Recognizing where they were, he forced his dazed mind to focus on their immediate surroundings rather than the astonishing piece of information which the sub-associate had just imparted to him.

"It appears that our hosts have returned us to the same location in which they found us. That is promising," Sheldon said, looking around. He saw a nearby house with garish green siding, an eyesore that he remembered passing many times on the way to Stuart's comic book store.

"Yeah, but _when_ are we?" Penny asked, and then groaned as she slapped a hand to her forehead. "I can't believe I just said that. I feel like I'm living out some cheesy sci-fi movie."

"I am not comfortable with the notion of asking random strangers for assistance," Sheldon said, frowning at the nearby houses. "I believe we are approximately 1.3 miles from Stuart's store. I'm certain that he would be willing to let us use his phone."

Penny patted her pockets with one hand. "Hey, wait, I have my cell phone!" she cried. She eagerly flipped it open, and then her face fell. "Never mind; the battery's drained." Sheldon's phone was also dead.

"Well, Stuart's it is, then," Penny said reluctantly. Sheldon reached over, relieving Penny of the burden of their sleeping son as they walked.

"Sheldon, what if it's been years?" Penny asked, as they trudged along. "I don't know if I can handle that. Our friends might have given us up for dead. They might have all moved away. We might not have a place to live…" Tears started welling up in her eyes.

Sheldon stopped in his tracks. He may be new to this relationship paradigm, but he knew what Penny needed from him. He gently folded both her and Stephen into his arms, gazing down at them with a newfound tenderness.

"There, there, Penny," he said. "We are both intelligent and resourceful people. We will manage with or without our friends," he said firmly, lifting her chin with one finger so she could see the resolve in his eyes. "We are a family now, and we will always have each other."

Penny looked away before Sheldon could see the doubt in her eyes. She knew that Sheldon believed what he was saying. She also knew that he was a logical person who didn't make decisions based on his feelings. Their relationship was too new for her to trust, and she feared it would be all too easy for him to slip back into his old life, his old habits and relationships. As for her, she rather dreaded seeing Leonard again. She knew that no matter what she or Sheldon said, he would be deeply hurt and resentful that she had left him—even if it hadn't been her fault.

After a short walk, they arrived at the comic book store. Sheldon immediately noticed a sci-fi movie poster in the store window and pointed it out to Penny. She failed to see why he was so excited, until he pointed out to her that Stuart liked to keep his display posters current. Sheldon had heard about the movie in question before their abduction, but the promotional artwork had not yet been released. If Stuart kept to his normal pattern of behavior, that meant that they had probably been gone for months, but most likely less than a year. Penny's heart sank when he explained it to her. She'd really been hoping that they would arrive closer to the time they had left, before their friends and family began to truly worry about them. But even if they had been returned to the exact moment they had been taken, there was still no rational explanation for the infant in her arms.

Penny sighed and placed a hand on Sheldon's arm. "I think it might be best if just one of us went in, sweetie. I don't want Stuart to find out about Stephen before our friends and family do. It just doesn't seem right. Besides, I don't think he's one of the people that needs to know our full story."

Sheldon nodded tersely and squared his shoulders. "I'll go." He handed Stephen back to her and headed into the comic book store, dreading the scene he was sure he was about to cause. As he entered the shop, the little bell above the door jangled, and Stuart looked up. His jaw dropped, and for several seconds, he stared agape at the formerly missing physicist.

"Sheldon, is it really you?" Stuart cried in disbelief, taking in his long hair and beard. "What happened to you, man? Everyone's been looking for you and Penny for months. And Penny... is she alright? Is she with you?"

Sheldon held up a hand to cut off the shop owner's monologue. "Please, Stuart, can we discuss this in private?"

"Uh... yeah. This way, I guess." Still staring incredulously, he ushered Sheldon through the door behind the cash register and into his living area behind the shop.

Sheldon turned to him. "First of all, Stuart, I can indeed confirm that Penny is safe. Second, I must ask that you tell no one that you have seen me until I have had a chance to contact my friends and family. And third, I must ask for the use of your phone to call Leonard."

Stuart nodded, wide-eyed, as Sheldon rattled off his demands. "Umm… sure, sure. I mean, of course you can use the phone. It's over there. But Sheldon, can't you tell me what's been going on?"

Sheldon looked down at the flustered store owner and said with complete seriousness, "I think the less you know the better." Stuart blanched, nodded quickly, and hurried from the room.

To say that Sheldon's phone call to Leonard was awkward would be a huge understatement. Leonard was by turns shocked, overjoyed, confused, suspicious, angry and relieved to finally hear from his roommate after the long unexplained absence. He agreed to come pick up Sheldon and Penny at the comic book store as soon as he had contacted their circle of friends. Sheldon felt a twinge of some emotion he couldn't identify as Leonard told him they had established a phone tree to expedite any news of their missing friends. As he walked past the cash register on his way out, Sheldon saw a flyer taped to the front of the display case. Photos of him and Penny were prominently displayed at the top of the page with the words, "Have You Seen Me?" and an 800 number below. He averted his eyes and hurried back to Penny and his son.

Slipping out into the parking lot, Sheldon hastened to Penny's side. As she saw the pain and uncertainty in his eyes, she reached out to him. He looked down at the woman who had become his life, and he kissed her, at first gently and then with increasing passion. Her response matched his until their son, cradled between them, began to fuss. Penny laughed softly as she tickled the baby's cheeks and chin. "Just like your father… always wanting to be the center of attention," she said to Stephen. Then she looked up at Sheldon. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"It will be an ordeal, but we will get through it together," he responded, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head.

Leonard arrived at Stuart's comic book store only a few minutes later, having driven more recklessly than ever before in his life. He threw himself out of the car and ran toward Penny with a huge smile on his face, only to be brought up short as he realized that the bundle in Penny's arms was an infant. He turned white as a sheet and swayed a little on his feet.

"Penny, what… what the _hell_ is that?" he burst out in disbelief, looking from his girlfriend to his best friend with growing horror.

"Leonard, this is Stephen," Penny replied calmly, but with a hint of steel in her voice. "He's my son, but this situation is _not_ what you think it is." She continued in a gentler tone, "I know how overwhelmed you must be feeling, with us showing up suddenly after being gone for so long. Sheldon and I will tell you everything that happened to us, but we want to tell it just once, to everyone. Please, can you just take us home?"

Leonard nodded, a quick jerk of his head, and then he hugged Penny awkwardly and clapped Sheldon on the shoulder. "We're all glad to have you back safe," he murmured in a daze, barely able to tear his eyes from the dark-haired baby in Penny's arms.

* * *

The atmosphere was tense in apartment 4A. Bernadette was sitting on the sofa next to Howard, squeezing his hand tightly. Sheldon's spot on the left-hand side of the couch remained unoccupied by tacit agreement. Amy was standing near the bookshelves, twisting her cardigan in her clenched fists. Raj was drinking surreptitiously from a flask in his pocket, and for once, it wasn't just so he could talk to women. It had been over six months since that first terrible night when Penny and Sheldon didn't return home from the comic book store. During that time, they had all taken up part-time "jobs" as researchers and canvassers to find their friends. After Leonard had filed the missing person reports, the police told them that Penny's car had been found by the side of the road. It had crashed into a tree, but there was no evidence that anyone had been in the car at the time of the collision. Mary and Missy Cooper and Penny's parents had all flown in to help. They went door to door, passing out "Have you seen me?" flyers, but as days turned to weeks with no new information, they had returned to their respective homes in despair.

Now, as the apartment door began to open, the gathered friends startled or leaped to their feet and then stared at the door. Leonard entered first, and a quick glance at his face showed them that although Penny and Sheldon may have been found, something was still very wrong. Then Sheldon stepped gingerly into the room, and his name rang throughout the room as his friends rushed to see him. That was when Penny stepped out from behind Sheldon, holding Stephen who was still wrapped up in Sheldon's favorite Flash t-shirt. The baby let out a wail at the unaccustomed noise. As Penny's friends stared at her, completely speechless, Stephen's cries caused a let-down, and two damp spots quickly appeared on the front of her now too-tight blouse.

"Oh, balls," she said.


	11. Chapter 11

There was utter silence in the apartment, apart from the forlorn wails of baby Stephen. He rooted frantically at the front of Penny's shirt, stymied by the unfamiliar fabric barrier. Sheldon looked at her, and some wordless communication seemed to pass between them. He placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her to his old room for some privacy to nurse Stephen. He returned to face his friends alone. Sheldon cleared his throat nervously. He and Penny had discussed what it might be like when they got home, but in none of those scenarios was he left by himself to explain their absence and the sudden appearance of an infant.

"Let me begin by asking that you hold your questions until I am done speaking," Sheldon began, his nervousness making him sound rather pompous.

"Oh, for heaven's sakes, Sheldon, we're not one of your undergrad classes," snapped Bernadette. Her comment elicited a few nervous chuckles, but the atmosphere in the room was still tense.

"I recognize that, and I didn't mean to imply that you were. I simply don't wish to relate my story more than once."

"Dude, we're all ears; now tell us," Raj begged.

"My story began the night of March 18th. Penny was driving me to Stuart's comic book store, as Leonard, Howard and Raj had elected to go see a movie that evening without me. The next thing I remember after that is regaining consciousness in a visually peculiar room. Penny was there as well, but we were missing all of our personal effects."

"All of them? Wait, wait, wait… do you mean you were naked? Did you see Penny naked?" cut in Howard eagerly, earning him a glare from Sheldon and a punch on the arm from his wife.

Sheldon's cheeks tinged with color, but he answered with as much dignity as he could. "I believe that is what I implied when I said all of our belongings were missing."

His audience listened, spellbound, as he described how they had explored the purple room, and how Penny had discovered the scar on his head. Everyone gasped as Sheldon turned his head and parted his hair so they could all see the nearly-healed line for themselves.

After he told them about the strange telepathic communication, and how he and Penny had both been tampered with, there was little left to tell… or rather, little that he wanted to share. Then came the shocking news of the alien's experiments with their genetic material.

"And that's where the baby came from?" Bernadette interrupted. "I was doing the math in my head, and I don't think there's any way Penny could've been pregnant before she disappeared. That baby still looks pretty young. She would've had to be about five or six months along, and I think we would have noticed if that had been the case."

Sheldon quietly noted that her words confirmed his suspicion of time travel. For him and Penny, it seemed that they had been away for almost a year, but to their friends, they had only been gone for five or six months.

Leonard scowled as he answered, "Trust me, Penny's _my_ girlfriend; there's no possible way I could have missed her being six months pregnant."

"So you are certain that the infant is the result of a combination of your DNA and Penny's?" Amy asked Sheldon in a flat voice.

"I'm so sorry, Amy. It's complicated, I know," came Penny's voice from the back hallway as she rejoined the group. She had filched another of Sheldon's t-shirts to replace her damp one, and the physicist felt a surge of desire to see her wearing his clothing. It made him feel as if she was his, as if she belonged with him. He quickly averted his eyes before his expression betrayed his feelings.

Penny continued, "We must have been the only humans they picked up. Stephen looks a lot like Sheldon, and I _feel_ like he is my child. Before they brought us back, the one alien told us he could… eliminate Stephen if we didn't want to keep him. I told them there was no way in hell they were laying a finger on my baby." She took a deep breath. "I don't know how things will work out, but I have a child now, and I have to do what's best for him."

"So you're really backing Sheldon's crazy alien abduction story?" Leonard asked incredulously.

Penny lost control of her fragile emotions. "Story? _Story_? Do you think we're making this up? What the _hell_ is wrong with you, Leonard? Do you really think either one of us wanted to just leave our entire lives behind, scaring our family and friends to death? Do you think we _chose_ to be kidnapped? To be locked up in a cage and experimented on like lab rats? To have everything I knew ripped away from me with no hope of ever seeing anyone I loved—or hell, even my planet—ever again?" She was simultaneously glaring furiously at him and fighting back tears.

"I—I didn't say that," Leonard faltered.

Then, to everyone's surprise, Penny drew in a deep breath and apologized. "I'm sorry, Leonard," she said shakily. "I'm angry, but it's about what happened to me and Sheldon, not because of anything you did. I'm still trying to sort everything out in my head, and I realize I've had a lot more time to deal with it than you've had."

"Uh, that's okay, I guess," Leonard replied, giving her his best placating smile with his head tilted to the side.

"Well, I think I speak for everybody when I say, we're just so happy you're back," Raj said joyously. He walked up to Penny and gave her a huge hug. Penny returned his embrace with tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered. Suddenly the tension melted away, and everyone was hugging Penny and Sheldon too, despite his obvious discomfort with physical displays of affection.

Howard and Bernadette saw that there were private conversations to be had, so they made their excuses before it got too late in the evening. Raj got the hint as well from a not-so-subtle elbow in the ribs from Bernadette and a jerk of her head towards the door. Leonard went to help Penny improvise a bed for Stephen, leaving Sheldon alone with Amy. He threw a panicked glance at Penny as she left. She met his gaze steadily, and gave him a small nod of encouragement. He turned his attention back to Amy, who was regarding him with an inscrutable expression.

"Would you care to take a walk, Amy?" he asked.

"I think that is advisable," she agreed. Opening the apartment door, she led the way, and the two of them stepped out into the night together.

* * *

Sheldon and Amy were silent as they walked down the four flights of stairs and through the front door of the apartment building. As they walked down Los Robles, Amy gathered her courage and spoke up.

"You seem different, Sheldon," she ventured hesitantly.

"I suppose being abducted by aliens would be considered by most a life-changing event," he replied.

"True, but you seem more… relaxed somehow." She stopped and put a hand on his arm. He looked slightly uncomfortable but merely returned her gaze expectantly.

Her lips compressed into a thin line. Somehow, the fact that he _wasn't_ freaking out because she was touching his arm only made matters worse. "I can't help but notice the way that you and Penny were looking at each other, Sheldon," she accused in a peevish tone of voice.

"And which way was that?" he asked warily.

"You look at her in a way you never looked at me. Your eyes follow her wherever she goes. And the look on your face is very… soft. Sheldon, are you in love with Penny?" she demanded abruptly.

"No, of course not," he scoffed, but the expression in his eyes didn't match the tone in his voice. He wasn't directly lying, but Amy could tell that something was up.

"All right, then tell me that nothing inappropriate happened between the two of you," Amy ordered in a reproachful tone. Sheldon looked away, but he couldn't hide the facial tics which signaled his discomfort. Amy clapped a hand over her mouth and stood staring at him for a long time. Two tears streaked down her cheeks. Finally, she sat down on a nearby bench and said in a low voice, "Tell me what happened, Sheldon. You owe me that much."

He was torn between a sense of obligation to Amy and his promise to Penny. But he knew Amy had already guessed some of it. Mentally reminding himself of his resolution to stop living in fear, Sheldon sat down on the bench next to Amy and began to tell her a carefully sanitized version of how he had ended up in this strange, undefined relationship with Penny. He regretted knowing he had hurt Amy's feelings. After all, he did care about her, just not in the way she had always hoped.

After Sheldon had finished speaking, Amy was silent for several long minutes. Finally, she said, "Sheldon, I have something to say, and I want you to promise that you will hear me out without interruption or questions." Sheldon nodded, curious but unsure.

"I was wrong about something, Sheldon," Amy began. "When we first met, you only wanted to be friends, and I did too. I was the one who changed. I wanted our relationship to go beyond friendship. So I pressured you and manipulated you. I made you feel ashamed and guilty for being yourself. I took advantage of my knowledge of behavioral conditioning to make you do what I wanted. I tore down your sense of self to remake you into my boyfriend. At first, this course of action seemed perfectly logical and rational to me. But as I got to know Penny and Bernadette, I began to realize that you shouldn't treat your friends like a lab experiment. I felt bad about what I was doing, but I just couldn't stop. I interpreted the slightest gestures from you as proof that you loved me."

Sheldon's eyes bulged at her mention of the word "love", but he kept his mouth shut as promised.

Amy continued, "Tonight, I've seen you look at Penny like a hungry lion watching a gazelle on the African veldt. It's made me realize that what I had with you was a poor and rather pathetic imitation of a real relationship."

She took a deep breath and met his gaze, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "You don't owe me an apology, Sheldon; I owe you one. I'm sorry for trying to force you to be the boyfriend I wanted you to be. I hope we can be friends again someday."

They talked for a while longer. Sheldon had neither accepted Amy's apology nor tried to excuse his feelings for Penny, mostly because he had no idea what he should say. He found himself wistfully yearning for Penny to be there with her supernatural empathy. With her, he never felt the need to explain how he felt. The tension between him and Amy lessened as she changed the subject and started talking about her latest research project. He listened and asked a few pertinent questions. Then she told him about how their whole group had been meeting weekly to discuss their search efforts to find him and Penny. She had become much closer to both Bernadette and Raj, and said she hoped the weekly get-togethers would continue even though he and Penny were back.

For once, Sheldon said little, but allowed Amy to speak. He had always valued their friendship. Learning that he had developed romantic feelings for Penny had to be difficult for her. The whole situation was very trying. Despite his feelings for Penny, neither of them were certain their bond would withstand the pressures of real life. That was why she had insisted that they spend time apart. Specifically, he knew that Penny doubted whether he could accept the turmoil that would come if they announced they were together. She knew how much he loved his solitude and routine. It was almost like she was trying to push him back into it. The situation bore a strong resemblance to the way she used to encourage his relationship with Amy. He knew Penny always wanted what she thought was best for him, but in this instance, he was convinced she was wrong. He would give it some time and allow her to think he had made a rational decision. But the truth was that he didn't know how he could live without her. If she wanted to call it co-dependent, he would accept that. He only knew how meaningless his life would be without Penny.

A pause in the background noise made him realize that Amy had asked him a question. Quickly, he reviewed her last words. He had allowed his mind to wander, but his eidetic memory enabled him to respond appropriately. He was still fond of Amy, but he realized he could never have the romantic relationship with her that she wanted. In time, he hoped they could return to the easy camaraderie they had once enjoyed.


	12. Chapter 12

Back in apartment 4A, Leonard waited until after Sheldon and Amy had left to tell Penny the bad news: the lease on her apartment had lapsed. The group had pooled their money to pay the rent for the first two months, he explained, but none of them could afford to do so long-term. So they packed up all her things and took them to a storage unit. He volunteered to drive her there in the morning, and she nodded and thanked him listlessly. Seeing she was tired, he asked if she wanted to sleep in his bed, but she turned him down and took the couch instead. She wasn't about to sleep in Sheldon's room, especially since she knew that doing so would heighten Leonard's feelings of jealousy and suspicion.

As she settled Stephen into a bassinet improvised from a dresser drawer, she felt drained. She'd borrowed Leonard's cell phone earlier to call her parents, and of course, they had a thousand questions for her that she couldn't answer. They had insisted on her coming home to see them, and then had immediately made her feel guilty by saying she would have to wait a few days until they found a flight they could afford. The whole time she was talking to them, all she could think about was how Sheldon had left with Amy. She knew they needed to talk and had even encouraged him to do so, but she hadn't realized how much it would hurt.

"So… ah… you were alone with Sheldon all that time… naked?" Leonard's whiny voice cut into Penny's thoughts. She looked up to see him standing in the kitchen, dressed in pajamas and his familiar ratty plaid robe.

She ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, like animals in a zoo. Leonard, I'm really tired. Can we please not discuss this now?"

He tilted his head to the side and squinted at her through his thick lenses. "Sure, no problem." A pause. "So all that time, you didn't ever…?" he trailed off suggestively.

"Look, you know Sheldon. Do you honestly think such a thought would ever cross his mind?" she replied evasively.

"It's just that you… you left me, and now you show up with a baby that you say is his, and where does that leave me?" Leonard whined, his voice rising in pitch.

Penny rounded on Leonard. Her nostrils flared, but she spoke in a low voice, hoping not to wake Stephen. "What the hell is wrong with you, Leonard? My life has been turned upside down, and I have better things to worry about than whether your feelings are hurt. I have a baby, Leonard— _a baby_ , and he comes first! You are a far distant second, and so is Sheldon, and _so am I_. Don't you get that? We're _not_ going to pick back up where we left off, because it's _not_ all about you anymore!"

Leonard stumbled back a few steps under the virulence of her outrage. He mumbled something under his breath before retreating to his room. As he sagged with relief against the interior of his closed door, he consoled himself by telling himself that Penny must have PMS to be treating him so badly.

Late into the night, Penny lay on the leather sofa with her head on Sheldon's 0,0,0,0 spot. Stephen slept peacefully, still wrapped in Sheldon's Flash t-shirt, in his makeshift crib. She stared off into the darkness, listening to Stephen's baby snores and trying not to think about how much she missed having Sheldon beside her. Sometime in the middle of the night, she heard the front door open and close softly. She froze and heard familiar footsteps come into the living room. There was a long pause, and then without a word, Sheldon padded silently to his room. For a while, she manage to stave off her tears, but being separated from him felt like she had been ripped in half. Doing what was best for him was so much harder than she had ever imagined.

* * *

Bernadette showed up early the next morning, bearing much-needed gifts of a package of diapers and a sleeper for Stephen. She was planning to take Penny on a shopping trip to purchase other baby items. Penny was relieved to have an excuse to avoid Leonard's hopeful puppy eyes that followed her around the apartment. With him there, she hadn't even been able to have a real conversation with Sheldon. He had emerged from his bedroom that morning, dressed in his usual undershirt, pajamas and robe, and then disappeared into the bathroom. When he came out again, his hair had been cropped to the nape of his neck. He had kept the beard, but it was now short and neatly groomed. Penny thought it was a good look for him and tried not to read too much into the way he was dressed in his usual layers. Leonard stumbled out of his room shortly after Sheldon had gone into the bathroom, looking around with a suspicious expression.

To Penny's surprise, Sheldon insisted that she and Stephen remain behind while Bernadette drove him to the baby superstore. He intended to purchase an infant car seat and some clothing for Stephen. After he was certain the car seat was properly installed, he promised that he would leave her in Bernadette's hands for the rest of the day. Penny smiled at Sheldon as she thanked him for his thoughtfulness. To be honest, she hadn't even considered the fact that she would need a car seat. Bernadette's sharp eyes darted from Sheldon to Penny during this exchange, but all she said was that they would be back as soon as possible.

That meant that Penny was now stuck in the apartment with just Leonard and Stephen for company, and Stephen was ready for his morning nap. As she tucked him into his makeshift bed, she reminded herself that if Sheldon could conquer his biggest hang-ups, she could have a conversation with an ex who didn't seem to understand that the relationship was over. Of course, she wasn't afraid of talking to Leonard; she was just hoping she could put it off until say, next year. Or maybe never. Leonard brought her a mug of coffee and sat down next to her, tilting his head quizzically. She almost took a sip of the coffee until she looked at Stephen, thought better of it, and set the mug back down. Taking a deep breath, she looked her former boyfriend in the eye and said, "Leonard, we need to talk."

Leonard looked nervous, but said, "All right. Why don't you start?"

She nodded. "The past several months were some of the most difficult times of my life. Everything I cared about was taken away from me… everything except for one friend. Over time, I had to let go of my hopes that I would ever see my other friends and family again. I thought I was probably going to die on an alien surgery table, or that they would just leave me to rot in that damn purple room. I had a lot of time to think about my life, and it forced me to look at things in a way I wouldn't have before. I've changed, Leonard. I'm not the same person I was a year ago. Now that I've got a baby to take care of, he has to be my first priority. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?" She broke off doubtfully, peering into Leonard's face.

She could see instantly that he didn't understand. With a broad grin, he proclaimed proudly, "It's okay, Penny. I have it all figured out. You can move in here. Sheldon can find another place to live. We'll get married so you won't have to work anymore. You can just stay home and raise Stephen. It doesn't matter whose DNA he carries. He'll be just like my own son, and we'll be just like a real family."

Penny's heart sank as she looked at the self-assured, almost smug, look on Leonard's face. _Oh Leonard_ , she thought sadly, _you're so close and yet so far off_. Yes, it was generous of him to offer to provide for them both and to raise Stephen as his son. But his offer was made out of a desire to control her, to bind her to him. He was completely overlooking his so-called best friend, acting as if Sheldon would just disappear completely out of the picture.

"Leonard, I think Sheldon might have something to say about who raises his son, don't you?" she prompted gently.

"Sheldon?" Leonard scoffed. "He's a robot. He has no feelings. How the hell do you think he can be any kind of parent? Trust me, Sheldon's most meaningful relationships in life are with his whiteboards and his comic books. Within a month, he probably won't even remember Stephen exists."

Penny's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. _Oh, it is on_ , she thought furiously. "How can you talk about Sheldon that way?" she hissed. "Don't you know he thinks you're his best friend? Sure, he can be arrogant at times, but he has reason to be. He's like literally the smartest man in the world!"

"Actually he's not…" Leonard tried to interrupt, but she just kept talking right over him.

"And if he's rude to people sometimes, it's because he doesn't understand emotions or how to relate to people. What's your excuse, Leonard? Sheldon's grown a lot lately. He's changed, and he's trying to be a better person. While you... you're still the same needy, self-absorbed jackass you've always been, trying to make everyone think you're a nice guy! I've had it with you, Leonard! Now get out of my way before I go junior rodeo on you."

Leonard fell back, stammering, as Penny swept up Stephen out of his improvised bed. Stephen immediately started to cry, ruining her grand exit, but Penny held her head high and left the apartment with nothing but her purse, a few diapers and her wailing son.

As the echoes of the slamming door faded, Leonard stared after Penny open-mouthed. He finally shook himself as if to clear his head and muttered, "Wow, what a bitch. Maybe I am better off without her. It's not like I don't have other options."


	13. Chapter 13

By the time Penny had reached the lobby of 2311 North Robles, she was beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of her hasty exit. She didn't regret telling Leonard off. In fact, she knew that argument was coming since the moment he first laid eyes on Stephen. But now she was alone, homeless really, with a baby. She was beginning to feel the first stirrings of real panic when Bernadette and Sheldon walked through the glass double doors.

With one swift glance at Penny's face, Bernie sighed and said, "Oh no. He just couldn't leave it alone, could he?"

Sheldon looked back and forth between the two women in confusion. "Who couldn't leave what alone?" he queried.

Bernie just shook her head and gave him a gentle shove at the small of his back. "Go home, Sheldon. I think Penny needs some girl time. We're going shopping." With these words, she gleefully flourished a wad of cash.

Penny gaped at the money. "Bernie, that's too much; I can't possibly accept that," she protested.

"Oh, don't worry. It's Sheldon's money. I figure that's the least he can do after saddling you with his alien baby," Bernadette said with a wicked grin.

Penny gasped and looked around worriedly. "Shut up, Bernie. The last thing I need is for Stephen to end up on the cover of some tabloid."

"Oh, relax," the petite blonde drawled. "This is southern California; loonies and crackpots are a dime a dozen here. You'd have to paint yourself silver and run around naked in the street before anyone took notice."

"Right," Penny said, thinking privately that she already done the running-around-naked part. "What are you going to do, sweetie?" she asked Sheldon, who had ignored Bernadette's order and was still standing there.

He met her gaze, and Penny felt the poignant melange of his emotional state wash over her: an iceberg of fear, a deep well of happiness, and a boulder-sized lump of guilt. "You're going to call your mom," she predicted.

"Yes," he replied, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. "She will most likely insist on my returning home as soon as possible."

She could read the longing in his eyes as he looked at her, but they had already discussed this. He would be going home alone to explain things to his family. Bringing Stephen to meet them, hard on the heels of his alien abduction story, would only make things worse for him. Penny had insisted. She was still adamant that they needed time apart

"Well... good luck," she replied lamely and turned to leave.

"Penny, wait," Sheldon called after her. She pivoted back toward him, hoping against hope that he had changed his mind, that he refused to be parted from her. He crossed the distance between in three long strides. After a split-second glance that seared her soul, he bent down and kissed Stephen, who had fallen asleep during their conversation, on his downy head. "Take care of him," he murmured.

As he mounted the stairs, Bernie grabbed her friend's arm and pulled her toward the door. Once they were outside, she turned back to Penny and propped her fists on her hips. "Okay, on the way to the store, you're going to tell me _everything_ you left out last night."

Penny looked steadily at her friend. In Bernie's eyes and body language, she could read determination, concern, and prurient curiosity. "I'm sorry, but I'm just not ready to talk about it yet," she replied.

It didn't take a mind reader or psychic, or whatever Penny was now, to tell that Bernie wasn't happy about this. Her lips flattened into a thin, compressed line while her hands tightened on the strap of her purse. But after a moment, she sighed and turned away. "Okay. At least we can go have fun spending Sheldon's money."

At the baby superstore, the two women wandered through the aisles. The cart was soon filled almost to the top. Stephen rode contentedly in his car seat latched to the front of the cart. After a couple of hours, Penny was surprised to find that they had spent most of the money. She had no idea that such a tiny baby needed so much stuff. She felt like they had cleaned out the store as they loaded the back of Bernie's car with clothes, diapers, a bassinet, a baby tub, a swing, a baby jungle gym, and dozens of smaller items.

"I take it we're not going back to the boys' apartment?" Bernie asked.

Penny looked uncomfortable. "I don't know. I really don't feel right staying there with things so weird between me and Leonard, but I don't have any other place to go."

"Don't be silly; you're coming home with me," Bernie replied. "Either Howard will be thrilled because he'll be hoping this starts my biological clock ticking, or he'll hate being woken up at all hours of the night and table the baby discussion for a few years at least. The way I see it, either way I win."

Penny smiled gratefully at her. "Thank you so much. I really needed someone to just be my friend right now."

* * *

Penny was relieved at Bernadette's offer to crash at her place for a few nights. She refused to go back to apartment 4A, especially since Sheldon was already on his way home to visit his family. She was sick and tired of dealing with all of Leonard's crap, and she was beginning to wonder what on earth she had ever seen in him. Had there really been a point in her life when a debatably nice guy was good enough for her?

Bernie was determined to get to the bottom of what was going on between Penny and Sheldon, so the next night she came home with a couple of bottles of wine and told Howard to go have dinner with his mother. Penny was actually tipsy after her second glass. Eight months without a drop of alcohol had turned her into something of a lightweight. As the girls talked, Bernie slowly dragged the real story out of Penny, all the details she had left out when talking to the group.

"I know it sounds crazy, but I think I'm in love with him," Penny said as she finished a rather rambling explanation..

Bernie frowned. If she hadn't seen with her own eyes how different Sheldon had behaved since his reappearance, she would have told Penny she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or Stockholm syndrome. "So how does Sheldon feel about you?" she asked carefully in her girlish voice.

"It's not that simple," Penny sighed. "Feelings never carried much weight with Sheldon. He has to decide if he wants me and Stephen enough to change his routines. I didn't even get to talk to him alone after he went for his walk with Amy. Leonard was always hovering around me. We didn't really have a chance to say anything to each other." The truth was, as usual, a bit more complicated than Penny let on.

Bernie squinted doubtfully at her friend. "Sheldon's like no one else I've ever met. I just don't know if he's cut out for a real relationship, let alone fatherhood. But no matter what happens, I'm here for you." She patted Penny's knee with a sympathetic grimace, making it clear what she thought the outcome would be.

* * *

Penny's parents had offered to buy her a plane ticket home, which was a good thing because she really didn't have any money to speak of. Of course, her parents didn't have much money either, so the ticket they purchased was for a mid-week flight. So she had a few days to kill until her flight left. She had stopped by the storage unit to grab some clothes and toiletries. She was grateful that her friends had kept all of her things, but it was strange and sobering to see her life reduced to a pile of boxes and furniture. Being around Bernie and Howard was awkward too. They were all kind to her, but none of them knew quite how to cope with her sudden reappearance, her bizarre story, or Stephen.

So that was how Penny found herself wandering around the mall with Stephen on a Sunday afternoon, trying to give Howard and Bernie some time to themselves. She looked longingly at clothes she couldn't afford, and passed on the iced coffee that she knew would keep the baby up all night. When she got to a shoe store, she couldn't resist popping in to try on a few pairs. Stephen had been an angel so far, looking around and cooing with interest, and now he was fast asleep in his new stroller. Penny was trying on a pair of stilettos when the woman across the aisle spoke up. "Those are adorable. You should definitely get them."

"Oh, um... I'm just looking," Penny replied uncomfortably. The woman who had spoken to her was about her age, but dressed in designer clothes that probably cost more than what Penny made in a month waitressing.

"For me, this is retail therapy," the young woman grimaced, flipping her chestnut locks back over one shoulder. She added the heels she had just tried on to a pile of boxes.

Penny's eyes widened as she mentally tallied up the price of the pile of shoes. "If that's the case, it looks like you're having a pretty bad day," she said sympathetically. "Do you want to talk about it?"

The brunette studied Penny's face for a moment. "I think my boyfriend's cheating on me," she blurted out, and then her eyes widened. "I don't normally do stuff like this... dump my problems on strangers, I mean. There's just something about you that makes me feel like you understand me. Is that weird?"

"In the past, I think I've made every mistake in the book," Penny said with a rueful smile. "So I can relate. Maybe you just need someone to talk to."  
"I'm Trish, by the way," the other woman said. "Do you want to go grab a coffee?"

Penny declined the coffee on account of Stephen but said she wouldn't mind a caffeine-free soda. After Trish had gushed over the baby, she left her pile of shoes behind as she left to talk with Penny. The two women chatted for over an hour. Penny could tell almost right away that Trish's boyfriend was cheating. Or at least, she could tell that Trish was convinced, and she just needed someone to listen to her. Finally, the brunette glanced at her watch (encircled with what Penny was sure were real diamonds) and exclaimed.

"I've got to go," she said. "Penny, thank you so much. I swear, talking to you makes me feel better than six months of therapy." She looked pensive. "What line of work are you in?" she asked suddenly.

"Oh, I came out here to be an actress, but it never panned out," Penny said, abashed.

"So you're not like, a psychologist or something?" Trish asked quizzically.

"No," Penny replied, drawing out the word. "Why would you think that?"

"I told you, somehow you've helped me so much. I can't believe you don't have people lining up to hear your advice." Trish paused, and then rummaged in her purse. She pulled out a small white business card and held it out to Penny. "I've never done this before, but I want to give you my father's card. I think you should talk to him about a job."

Penny looked puzzled. "What kind of work is he in?"

Trish grinned. "He's a talent agent for a conglomerate of radio stations. I think you'd be great as a radio personality... you know, like a talk show host."

Penny was speechless. Finally, she managed to find her voice. "Are you serious?"

Trish pressed the card into her hand. "Trust me. What do you have to lose? I'll tell him to be expecting your call."


	14. Chapter 14

Sheldon had only been home for a few days, and already the novelty was starting to wear off. He spent hours holed up in his childhood bedroom, scribbling away at his whiteboards. His mother watched him worriedly, not sure what to make of his behavior. He desperately wanted time alone, but not for the reasons his mother suspected. Right before he and Penny had been transported back to earth, the alien subordinate who had experimented on them had forced his way into the room. From the careless way he and Penny had been treated even after it was decided they were sentient, Sheldon surmised that apology (or even tact) were foreign to the alien's culture. Instead, the alien had given Sheldon a gift through their telepathic link: a concept that could possibly lead to the Holy Grail of modern physics, a unified theory of the universe. If he could understand it, if he could translate this vague mental image into a mathematical formula, he might finally realize his dream of a Nobel prize. It was what he had been searching for his entire life, and yet his excitement over that thought was strangely dimmed. He hadn't come up with the idea. It had been tossed at him randomly like some unlovely consolation prize. Even if he could solve the problem, could he present it as his own work? Or would doing so just make him feel like the world's biggest liar, until he could no longer stand the dishonesty and blurted out the truth at the most inopportune moment?

Mary Cooper tolerated her son's odd behavior for a few days before she decided to put her foot down. Whenever she got that steely glint in her eye and the strident tone in her voice, Sheldon quailed inwardly. He had rarely been able to stand up to his mother about anything. That was because having so little empathy, he was used to relying on her judgment in social situations. He had to admit there were a few times his ego had gotten him in trouble, and he had defaulted to letting his mom swoop in and smooth things over. The only times he had stood up to his mother were with things that really mattered to him, like when he moved to Germany to pursue his doctorate. His mother had hated the idea of her youngest being an eight-hour flight away. In retrospect, she hadn't been wrong in her assessment of his ability to take care of himself. He'd been dead wrong in how he handled that business with Caitlin. If only he had known Penny back then, she would have looked out for him. Strange as it may sound, one of the reasons he was so fond of Penny was how much she reminded him of his mother, always looking out for him... with the exception that Penny wasn't full of redneck superstitions and religious hypocrisy. She was superior than his mother in that respect, and whenever he wasn't focused on his whiteboards, his mind kept returning to thoughts of Penny.

The nights were the worst. Every evening, he dragged his mattress off the bed and onto the floor, which helped to simulate the alcove environment. He would then remove and carefully fold his flannel pajamas, which he had quickly found to be too confining. Then he would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying vainly to get to sleep. Every night, sleep was a long time coming because Penny was no longer by his side. He missed her comforting warmth against his side, the sound of her soft breathing in the night, and the warm vanilla scent of her skin. She had become his constant, the center of his universe, and without her, he was bereft.

His mother was clearly aware that something was wrong with her youngest, but this time, Sheldon couldn't allow himself to tell her what was going on. She even tried using her best, stern, mothering tone of voice, but he would only shake his head and say she wouldn't understand, or that she would try to have him committed again. Without Penny by his side, he felt oddly dissociated from his surroundings. He would stare at his whiteboard, at the equations which failed to capture the elusive concepts dancing around in the back of his mind. It was unlike him to doubt himself, but he felt stretched thin by his heartache and the delusion of half-truths he was trying to pull over his family's eyes. The absence of Penny became a constant pain which gnawed at him, until he thought every time his heart beat in his chest, it was whispering her name. There was only one person who might help him make sense of this turmoil: his Meemaw.

* * *

Penny tried to gather her courage as she scooped up her purse and new diaper bag. She looped her arm through the handle of Stephen's car seat and awkwardly made her way down the aisle of the plane. She was beginning to have second thoughts about not telling her parents about Stephen over the phone. Then again, news like that ought to be delivered in person. She sighed. The cover story that she and Sheldon had worked out was idiotic, but she had no intention of ever telling her family that she was abducted by aliens. Instead, her story was that she had gone to Tijuana for the weekend and been swept off her feet by a handsome stranger. She had supposedly run off with him, only to soon discover that he was mixed up in some dangerous business. She was afraid to leave until she had given birth and realized she had to leave for her baby's sake. It sounded like a bad soap opera plot. The worst part was that it probably wouldn't be hard for her family to buy it, since they'd never thought very much of her.

She walked through the glass doors of the baggage claim and out onto the sidewalk. Looking around, she quickly spotted her dad's pickup. Fighting off a wave of panic, she slowly walked toward his vehicle. Wyatt had already seen his little girl, and he jumped out of his truck with the energy of a much younger man. But as he registered what Penny was carrying, he stopped dead in his tracks. Penny took the last few steps to stand in front of her father.

"Hi, Dad," she said tentatively.

He plucked the baseball cap off his head and ran a hand through his thinning hair before settling the hat back on his head. "That yours?" he asked laconically.

She nodded. "His name's Stephen."

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"I—I just couldn't. I'm sorry, Dad."

He pulled thoughtfully at his lip for a moment, and then asked, "Can I hold him?"

A little sob escaped her lips as she nodded. With those words, she knew her father forgave her. She unbuckled Stephen and placed him in her dad's waiting arms. His lined face softened as he gazed down at the little boy.

"My first grandson," he said proudly. Then he looked up and winked at Penny. "Your sister's gonna be real ticked when she hears. She wants a boy bad, and so far, she's just got the two girls."

Penny laughed at that, feeling relieved. If her father was on her side, facing her mom just went from Defcon Five to bearable.

On the ride home, Wyatt let his youngest daughter fill the silence with stories about how smart and adorable Stephen was. In that respect, she was like every other new parent, convinced that her child was better than anyone else's. As they pulled up the long gravel driveway, he saw her twisting her hands in her lap.

"Don't worry, Slugger. Your mom'll come around," he said softly, although he wasn't sure he believed it himself.

When Penny's mother found out the news, her only reaction was to clamp her lips into a disapproving line and shake her head in weary resignation. She had never expected much of her children, and Penny had always failed to meet what low expectations she had. At least her oldest had the good sense to get married first before she got knocked up. Penny had always been a bit of a dreamer, imagining that fame and success might someday be hers. Instead, five years later, she was coming home with nothing but the clothes on her back and a newborn to care for.

 _If Penny thinks I'm going to raise that child while she parties and sleeps around, she's got another think coming_ , Barb told herself grimly. She would let Penny stay for a while, but tough love was the only thing that might teach her a lesson.

* * *

When Sheldon called his Meemaw, she invited him over to help with the Saturday baking, just as he used to do as a child. He eagerly agreed and reveled in the familiarity of mixing cookie dough and rolling out pie crusts. When the first two pies were in the oven, Meemaw poured them two glasses of lemonade and sat down at the scarred old kitchen table with a grateful sigh. Then she leveled a look at her grandson. "Now Moonpie, why don't you tell me what's bothering you?"

Sheldon gave her a startled look. She chuckled. "Sheldon, I know you better than almost anyone alive. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

He fidgeted, his gaze skittering around the room. "I'm not sure where to begin. The situation is... complicated." He was silent a moment longer, then said in a low voice, "Meemaw, I have a son."

She sat motionless for several seconds, then said cautiously, "Now when you say son, you mean...?"

"A child, yes. His name is Stephen, and he's about two months old."

"And where is this boy of yours, Sheldon?" she asked quietly, after a long pause.

"Nebraska, I think."

She frowned. "You think? You don't know?"

He looked down, tracing the grain of the wooden table with one long finger. "He's with his mother, Penny. She was the one who disappeared with me. She went home to see her parents too. I… I miss them both so much. I don't know what to do. She told me that I needed to give myself time to decide what I really want."

"Oh, Moonpie, how did this all happen?" Meemaw asked, shaking her head. "How did you go from barely being able to hold hands with one girl to getting another one pregnant and letting her think she's all on her own?"

Sheldon winced. "It wasn't my fault. Not all of it, anyway. I was never comfortable around Amy the way I am around Penny. But I always thought Penny was more like a sister to me until… we were abducted. You see, Meemaw, what I said about going away on a journey of self-discovery? That wasn't exactly what happened," he confessed.

"Sheldon honey, anyone who knows you at all could tell by your twitchin' you weren't tellin' the truth. We just hoped that in time, you'd be able to tell us what really happened."

"Nevertheless," he countered, "I'm concerned that if I tell my mother what really happened, she may try to have me committed again."

She looked concerned. "Well then, Moonpie, how 'bout you tell me? I promise I'll do my best to understand."

He nodded reluctantly and began to tell his story. His grandmother listened without comment. She got up once, to take the pies out of the oven, then she turned off the oven and sat back down again. Sheldon wasn't comfortable enough to share intimate details about his relationship with Penny, but Meemaw was wise enough to read between the lines. When he finally finished speaking, she got up from her chair and hugged him. He returned the hug gratefully; his Meemaw was still on his side.

"Land's sakes, Moonpie," she said at last, "you sure know how to complicate things." Whether she believed all the details of his story or not was beside the point. Her favorite grandson had finally found someone he couldn't live without; now all she had to do was make him realize how he felt.

"What should I do, Meemaw?" he asked.

"Do you love her?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know."

She tsked. "I think you do."

"I.. I know I trust her, more than anyone else except you. And I want her back."

"If you had to move to Nebraska to be with her and your son, would you do it?" she asked.

He looked down for a moment, then met her faded blue eyes with his midnight blue ones. "I didn't want to come back, at the end. I had Penny, and I had Stephen, and I felt like a superhero, like I could do anything. And then we did come back, and everything's different. Penny is different, and I don't know how to fix things." He looked at her despairingly.

"I think you do, Moonpie. It's time for you to stop being your momma's little boy. I know you were practically born smarter than most adults, and yet you never wanted to act like one. It's time for you to decide what your priorities are. If you love her, you have to let her know how you feel."

Sheldon was quiet for several minutes. His Meemaw waited patiently, knowing how difficult it was for him to process his emotions. Finally, he looked up at her. "You're right, Meemaw. I have to go talk to Penny. I never should have left her to face her parents alone. Being back home with my family has been hard enough when I can't tell them where I've been for so long. I left Penny to face all that, plus bringing home a child for which she has no adequate explaination. I failed her; I see that now, but I'm going to try to make it better."

He pushed his chair back and stood. "I'll need to make traveling arrangements. Excuse me."

"Hold on a minute, Moonpie. You owe it to your momma to say somethin' to her before you take off again."

He scowled and looked down at his feet. "I was hoping you'd forgotten about that."

* * *

Sheldon didn't tell his mother everything. He was hoping to have Penny by his side when his mother found out he had a child. He did tell her about Penny. His mother was rather astonished to hear it was a girl who had gotten under his skin, and even more so to learn the girl in question wasn't Amy. She already knew that whatever was bothering her son was something he had to work through on his own. So she drove him to the airport, hugged him and made him promise to call every week so she wouldn't worry.

"If everything works out, Mom, I may be back here sooner than you think," he said cryptically. Then he hugged her, a little awkwardly perhaps, but still more affectionately than he had done in years. Leaving her to stare after him in amazement, he walked into the terminal, on his way to see if Penny would forgive him.


	15. Chapter 15

Penny sat on her parents' porch, rocking Stephen on the old swing. Coming back home had been both better and worse than she anticipated. Her father had been surprisingly laid-back about finding out he had a grandson. It was clear that he adored Stephen. Over the past two days, she had put off questions about Stephen's birth and parentage by saying she didn't want to talk about it. She couldn't bring herself to use that ridiculous story that she and Sheldon had made up, although she wasn't sure if that was for her parents' sake or hers. At some point, she knew her mother would corner her and give her the third degree.

The creak of the screen door announced that someone was joining her on the porch. She looked up, and her heart sank a little. It was her mother. The older woman came over and sat down beside Penny.

"So I'm guessing he's not Leonard's child, is he?" her mother asked, getting right to the point. "He doesn't look much like Leonard."

Penny drew in a deep breath, trying to dispel her tension. "No, Mom, he's not Leonard's."

"You cheat on him?" her mother asked sharply.

"It wasn't like that," Penny protested, although she still felt a slight pang of guilt. "We were... I guess you could say we were on a break."

"So you cheated," her mother said drily. "Bet your boyfriend didn't expect you to go get yourself knocked up while you were taking a break. And how on earth did you screw that up? Didn't you use birth control?"

Penny gritted her teeth. "Apparently, it didn't work," she lied.

Clearly, her mother was unimpressed by her answer. Her lips compressed into a thin line. "And just where did you disappear for all those months, Penelope? Didn't you even think about us? You left us worrying and thinking you were dead or worse for months. What the hell were you doing that you couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone and let us know you were alive?"

Penny's eyes filled with tears. "It was 'or worse', Mom. I was trapped, and I couldn't leave, and I thought I'd never see any of you ever again. Can't you just stop picking on me and be happy that I'm back?"

Her mother stared at her for a long moment, and Penny began to wonder if she had actually gotten through to her.

"Well, if all this mess wasn't because of your own foolishness, if something bad happened, then why didn't you call the police? I raised you better than that," her mother said.

Penny had had enough. She stood up, waking Stephen, who began to fuss. "I get it. I'm the screw-up. I'm never going to be the perfect daughter. But I'm a mom now, and I can guarantee you that I will never treat my son the way you treat me. I wish for once in my life, you would just love me instead of trying to fix me."

Penny's mother crossed her arms. "That just shows how little you know about parenting," she scoffed. "Love means doing the right thing, not letting your kids get away with murder. If you can't understand that, it just shows you're not ready to be a mother. You should give him up, let him have a real family with a mom and a dad, people who can provide for him and raise him right."

Penny absently soothed her son while she stared at her mother in horror. "Is that really what you think of me?" she asked. She looked at her mother's hardened expression and had her answer. "Never mind, you don't need to say any more. I'll be out of here as soon as I can." She turned to walk away.

"Where will you go? You've got nothing and no one except your family," her mother called after her.

Penny didn't answer. She scrubbed away the tears on her face as she retreated to her old bedroom. The walls were still decorated with pages torn from old magazines, depicting glamorous actors accepting awards or posing on the red carpet. Her dreams seemed childish and small now, she thought as she cuddled Stephen close so she could feed him. The appeal of acting had been more about fame and money. She had allowed a few modest successes in high school plays to go to her head. Well, it was never going to happen now. Penny reached over into the nightstand drawer and pulled out the business card she'd gotten from the woman at the mall. Tracy had seemed convinced that she could have a career in radio. Sighing, Penny tossed it back inside and shoved the drawer shut. Even that idea seemed impossibly out of reach. Her mother was right. She really did have nothing, but that was going to change. Tomorrow, she would start looking for a job. Maybe the local branch of the Cheesecake Factory would hire her if she could get her old manager to put in a good word for her. At least she had one goal now: to save up enough money to get a place of her own. She didn't know how she could stand living under her parent's roof another day, but she would do whatever she had to, to provide for her son.

* * *

Penny had paid little attention to the sound of a car in the driveway until she heard a familiar triple knocking pattern on her parents' door. She was in the middle of changing Stephen's diaper. With a sinking heart, she realized there was no way she could get to the front door before anyone else did. She heard her father talking and Sheldon's tenor response. Mentally cringing, she hurriedly fastened Stephen's sleeper.

When she came down the stairs, her father looked up and said, "Here she is now." Then his eyes darted back and forth between Stephen and Sheldon.

"Hello, Penny," Sheldon greeted her, but all she could think of was the suspicious way her dad was looking at him.

"We can talk outside," she said quickly. She grabbed his sleeve and tugged him out toward the porch, away from her dad's gaze.

"May I hold him?" were the first words out of Sheldon's mouth once they were on the porch.

Penny handed him over with a degree of reluctance. She could see the fleeting glimpse of hurt in his eyes, but she just didn't care at the moment. She hated the way her heart had skipped a beat when she saw him get out of the taxi. He had left her alone, even though she had said it was what she wanted. Privately, she knew she had been testing him. She wanted to know if he would fall back into his old habit of being selfish, demanding and difficult. Her resolve wavered now that he was standing in front of her. She curled her hands into fists so she wouldn't reach out and touch him. She was so done with this emotional roller coaster. At that exact moment, she almost wished he would just go away.

"What do you want, Sheldon?" she asked tiredly.

"I missed you. I came to see you," he said.

She saw the raw need in his face, but she shook her head. "We agreed that you were going to give it time. You don't go by your emotions, never have. That's why you need time to think and figure out if Stephen and I can fit into your life." She bit her lip and looked away, knowing that even if he wanted his life to go back exactly the way it had been before, that might not be possible. _Maybe I'm better off halfway across the country_ , Penny thought. _At least I won't have to look Amy in the eye when she finds out I slept with her boyfriend._

Sheldon took a step closer. "Do you think I was happy before?" he asked.

She frowned. "What does that have to do—"

"Just answer the question," he interrupted impatiently.

She took a deep breath. "I think you used to say it best: you weren't _un_ happy."

"With you, I was happy," he said quietly. "Before we were abducted, we were both reluctantly trying to meet our significant other's expectations. I might have eventually married Amy and spent the rest of my life being "not unhappy". Instead, my life was thrown into chaos, and paradoxically, it was only when I accepted my loss of control that I was able to find real happiness. I don't want my old life back. I love you, and I love our son. If this is what chaos has brought into my life, then I will embrace change, as much as I am able."

Penny's mouth had dropped open when he said he loved her. Tears burned their way down her cheeks. _He deserves better than me,_ she thought. The truth was she was afraid of being hurt. It was easier to push him away than to try to make their relationship work in the real world.

"I can't..." She shook her head. "It's not that simple."

Still cradling Stephen against his chest, Sheldon reached out and took her hand. He led her to the faded white porch swing and sat down next to her. The baby gurgled happily at the rocking motion. "There is something else I need to tell you," he said. "Do you remember, just before we were transported back to earth, how the one alien came in and started arguing with the other one?"

Penny nodded, taken aback by this change of topic.

"The one that came in was the sub-associate who had experimented on us. I think he was trying to make amends for his error. He communicated a concept about the nature of the universe to me. I've been working on it for the past week. I think it might take me a while to understand it, but… I believe it might revolutionize the world's understanding of physics."

She wrinkled her nose in confusion. "Why are you telling me this? I don't know anything about physics."

"I want you to know that once I have translated this information into mathematical formulae, I believe the world will be my oyster. The most prestigious universities in the world will be lining up to give me grants to continue my research. That means I can live anywhere I choose. So if you would like to stay here, close to your family, then I will move to Omaha as well. I'm not leaving you to raise our son alone."

Penny was stunned. "But what about your job, your apartment, your friends? I mean, you've been roommates with Leonard for almost ten years."

"Yes, but you and Stephen are my highest priority now. I want you to know that you will have my full support in caring for our son." He swallowed hard, looking pale. "And I believe that the first step is to tell your parents the truth: that I am his father."

"I think my dad's already half-figured it out," Penny replied. Her mind fastened on this small detail to avoid thinking about what Sheldon had just said: that he was willing to uproot his entire life for her and his son. "And my mom…. well, it can't possibly make her think any less of me. My dad's been pretty good about the whole thing, but I would give anything to move back to Pasadena. Coming back home just reminded me of all the reasons why I wanted to leave so badly eight years ago."

Sheldon sighed in relief. "Good. Then I will notify Leonard that he needs to start looking for a new apartment."

"Wait… what?" Penny cried. "Are you saying you want me to move in with you?"

Sheldon looked at her in surprise. "Of course. It is the most logical option." He looked over at her, and she was shaking her head.

"I don't want to move in with you just because you think it would be convenient," she protested. "Besides, what about Amy?"

"She knows that I have feelings for you. She actually apologized for the way she manipulated me while we were dating. I think, in time, we may learn to be friends again."

"Did you tell her… everything?"

"No, but she may have guessed. None of that matters, though. I'm not leaving you again. I don't care what any of our friends think. I know you believe I live my life based on logic, and that I feel compelled to make rational decisions based on what I think rather that what I feel. Very well, then. Let me rephrase: I've _decided_ to keep you and Stephen as close as you will allow. I'm _certain_ that I don't want to live apart from you, and I _know_ I want you to be a part of my life. Is that logical enough for you?" he asked with a ghost of a smile.

"Yeah," she whispered. She hooked a finger in the collars of his double-layered tees and drew his head down so she could kiss him. When they finally parted (Stephen started fussing as if he could sense he wasn't the center of attention), Penny swiped quickly at her eyes. With a tremulous smile, she asked, "When can we leave?"


	16. Chapter 16

The next thing Sheldon knew he needed to do was to introduce himself to Penny's parents. They didn't know it yet, but he regarded them as his future in-laws. He didn't hold out much hope for winning their approval, but he had carefully researched what to do when meeting one's girlfriend's parents. Lying was not the right way to start off their relationship, not to mention that he hated dishonesty.

Wyatt and Barb invited him to join them for dinner, although both of them seemed rather suspicious of him. They made their way through the first half of the meal without incident. Sheldon drew on his eidetic memory of appropriate "small talk" subjects, and he listened to the answers provided with at least a modicum of interest. Whatever he learned about Penny's parents might help him to better understand her. Then, partway through the meal, Barb suddenly started hinting that Stephen bore more than a passing resemblance to him. Sheldon glanced over at Penny, wishing again that he had some of her empathic abilities so he knew how to respond. But Penny was quiet, looking down at her plate. Her whole body seemed to shrink in on itself, and he could tell that she was feeling unhappy and ashamed. The shock of realizing that he had interpreted her nonverbal communication almost overpowered his intense nervousness at what he knew he had to do next. He stood and walked to the other side of the table, where Penny had been seated across from him. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him. His flash of insight had deserted him as suddenly as it came; he had no idea what the expression on her face meant.

"I had hoped for more time in which to make a favorable impression," he faltered. "But the truth is… yes, I am Stephen's father. I came to tell Penny I made an error in allowing her to believe she had anything less than my full support. When she is ready to return home, I have offered for her to move in with me. I will provide for them both to the best of my ability."

In retrospect, he realized that there was probably some way he could have made his announcement less bluntly, but he wasn't certain it would have made any difference. Penny's mother, after a stunned silence, started to verbally attack her daughter. Wyatt attempted to calm his wife down without much success. She seemed to have years of bitterness stored up that had been just waiting for an opportunity to bubble up to the surface. Sheldon didn't understand why Penny, one of the bravest people he knew, didn't defend herself, although he knew from experience that mothers were especially difficult to stand up to. Instead, he did the only thing he could think to do. He pulled Penny to her feet, retrieved Stephen from his bassinet, and the three of them walked out the door. Penny's mother followed them to the porch, yelling slurs after them, but she didn't pursue them.

When they could no longer hear her mother, Penny slowed to a halt along the side of the road. She put a hand to her mouth, and a small choked noise escaped. As he watched, first one tear and then another slid down her cheeks. He put his arms around her as best as he could while still holding Stephen. "There, there," he said softly as she buried her face in his chest. He could feel the sobs shuddering through her body, and he had never felt so helpless and furious all at once.

After a few minutes, she lifted her head and wiped at her eyes. "Now you know why I've only been home once in the past seven years," she murmured.

He put his arm around her again, wishing he could protect her from this pain. "You don't have to go back ever again," he promised. "We'll get a hotel tonight, and I'll book us on the next available flight back home."

"But Stephen's things…. I didn't even bring his diaper bag," Penny protested.

"It's not worth you going back to expose yourself to that kind of contumely… that means abuse or insult," he added, seeing her blank expression. "We'll buy what we need for tonight, and if we have to, we can repurchase whatever we need in California. They're just material possessions, Penny. You and Stephen are all that really matter." To prove his point, he kissed her tenderly and then got out his phone to call for a taxi equipped with a built-in infant seat.

* * *

That night, in a strange hotel bed made up with sheets of dubious cleanliness, Sheldon once again found himself unable to sleep. But this time, it was because he didn't want to lose the deep contentment that filled him as he watched Penny lying near him. Their son was curled up on the bed between them, and he kept thinking how close he had been to losing them both. He definitely owed his Meemaw a thank-you note.

As it turned out, they didn't need to buy all new baby items. Penny's dad called her the next morning. He had packed up all of Penny and Stephen's things and arrange to meet them in town before their flight. He seemed embarrassed by his wife's outburst of the previous night, although he tried to excuse it by saying that Barb had never forgiven Penny for moving halfway across the country. Penny didn't comment on his explanation; instead, she just hugged him and said he was welcome to visit them anytime he was able to come out to California. Unspoken was the assumption that she was never coming back to Omaha.

Sheldon had purchased tickets to Galveston. After explaining how his conversation with his Meemaw had helped him sort out his feelings, he felt he owed a visit to her, if not to his mother and siblings. Penny looked exhausted, but she said she was looking forward to meeting the woman who had such a profound impact in his life.

On the flight, he told Penny that he had already contacted Leonard. He had explained that Penny would be staying with him in the apartment until he and Leonard could come to an agreement about living arrangements. Either Leonard would move out, or Sheldon would sign the lease over to him and find his family a new place to live. Family: the word felt completely right and yet filled him with awe. A year ago, he barely had any friends; now, he had a girlfriend and a son for whom he would make any sacrifice. She advised him to let Leonard keep the apartment. In fact, she said she would feel more comfortable if she didn't have to sleep under the same roof as Leonard. She thought it seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited for Sheldon to even think about evicting Leonard, after he stole his girlfriend.

Sheldon just looked puzzled at that. "But it's a two-bedroom apartment, and he is only one individual," he protested.

She placed a hand on his arm. "Do you trust my judgment on this?" she asked softly.

He knew she still doubted herself, and he couldn't fathom how she couldn't see what an incredible gift she had… what an incredible gift she was.

"Absolutely," he replied. He leaned down toward her and brushed her lips with his. With a little moan of contentment, she pressed into him and deepened the kiss. When she finally pulled back, her cheeks were pink and her eyes were sparkling mischievously. "Wanna join the mile high club?" she asked flirtatiously.

There was a time when Sheldon would have had no idea what that meant, simply because he found most references to popular culture puerile and irrelevant. Of course, that was before he met Penny. He tried to imagine the two of them having coitus in the tiny cramped space of an airline toilet facility and shuddered. "Dear Lord, no," he answered emphatically, eliciting a laugh from Penny.

* * *

From the airport, they went straight to their hotel. The suite was decorated in bland colors, but it was very clean, which pleased Sheldon. As it was already dark, he busied himself setting up Stephen's bassinet and then went back to their rental car (Penny had done the driving) to bring in the rest of their meager luggage. As he entered the room and set down his burden, he stopped short. Penny was sitting on the living room sofa, nursing Stephen. His tiny fist waved back and forth, tightly clutching a lock of her hair. She was humming softly to her child—their child. Sheldon had never been more grateful for his eidetic memory, because this was a moment he always wanted to remember. He dumped the suitcases unceremoniously by the door and went to sit beside her. Stroking Stephen's downy head, he drank in the beatific smile on her face.

"I love you," he said suddenly. She looked up at him, and the serene expression on her face began to change. Quickly, he leaned in and kissed her, thinking that at least this way, he didn't have to see how she still struggled with doubts. He remembered how Leonard loved to tell stories about his horrible, loveless upbringing. A few times, he had accidentally let slip some of the less savory details of his own parents' flawed attempts to raise him and his siblings. Penny had never said a word about her mother, and he wasn't sure if that was because she had so much emotional strength or because her pain was so deep that she couldn't talk about it. It didn't matter. He was, in a strange way, grateful for the scene he had witnessed from Penny's mother. If he hadn't, he may have never understood how hurtful words could be. There had been many times in the past when he had insulted Penny—not in a cruel way, but just as a product of his callous disregard for the rest of the human race. If he hadn't been convinced before, he was now certain that needed to change. He never wanted to see Penny the way she had been at her parent's home, feeling rejected and worthless. Sheldon didn't know if he was capable of making up for that lack, but he was determined to try. So he kissed her tenderly again, trying to express his love to her in a way she would understand.

Stephen was already asleep in his bassinet as Sheldon got ready for bed. While Penny was brushing her teeth in the tiny bathroom, he slipped under the covers before he removed his robe and carefully folded it. He sighed with relief to see Penny approaching the bed he had chosen. There were two queen sized beds in the room, and he hadn't been certain if she wanted to be with him. She had turned off the lights behind her, and a faint glow from the lights in the parking lot illuminated her features as she came closer. She shrugged out of her top and pulled her camisole over her head. Sheldon found himself unable to look away. This was the very first time he had ever seen her undress. He had to admit, the effect it had on him was everything he had heard. It was fascinating, alluring, and even erotic, a word he never thought he would have used to describe how he personally felt about anyone.

She slid between the sheets, brushing against his leg as she did so. Her eyes widened as she realized he wasn't wearing his customary flannel pajamas. She ran a hand across his bare chest. "Ooh, is someone feeling frisky?" she asked flirtatiously.

"If 'frisky' is meant to denote sexual eagerness, then yes, I would very much like to be intimate with you," he replied seriously. "But I haven't been able to get back in the habit of wearing pajamas. They feel too confining when I sleep. I kept having nightmares of being trapped or restrained…" He trailed off and shook his head. "You should know I have no expectation of coitus being a part of our living arrangements. I don't want you to feel obligated to me because I will be providing for you and Stephen."

"I don't. I mean, I do, but that's not why I'm doing this," she said. She didn't say anything more as she began kissing him while trailing one hand down his stomach. As she started to touch him, all his questions about the status of their relationship were driven from his mind.


	17. Chapter 17

Sheldon wanted to take Stephen to meet his Meemaw first. The elderly woman immediately welcomed Penny and made her feel at home, even as she could hardly stop crying at the sight of her first great-grandchild. She fussed equally over Sheldon and his son, and told Sheldon repeatedly how proud she was of him. She insisted they stay for lunch and only pushed them out when Sheldon finally mentioned that he hadn't yet taken Stephen to meet his mother.

As they were driving over to Sheldon's mother's house, Penny looked over at him with a smile. "Now I know why you love your Meemaw so much. She's really great. I wish I had a Meemaw like that."

He nodded, remembering how Penny had told him that three of her grandparents had died when she was young. She had a grandmother who lived in Boca Raton, but she hardly ever saw her. "Since she is Stephen's great-grandmother, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you called her Meemaw too. I believe she already thinks of you as family." In fact, he was certain of it. Before they left Meemaw's house, she had pushed a small velvet box into his hand with a meaningful look. He concealed it quickly. Although he hadn't yet had time to examine the box, he believed it contained the engagement ring passed down through several generations of the Cooper family.

Penny cast a startled glance at him. "If you don't think she'd mind, I'd love to," she answered, beaming. She was quiet during the rest of the drive, following Sheldon's directions until they got to his mom's house. As she parked the car in front of Mary Cooper's yellow ranch-style home, Penny took several deep breaths, trying to calm her nerves. Sheldon had decided that finding out he had a son was news best delivered in person. Penny just hoped that his mother wouldn't keel over from the shock.

Sheldon entered the house first, holding Stephen in his arms, with Penny trailing behind him. Mary heard them come in and bustled out from the kitchen, only to stop dead when she saw the three of them. She stared wordlessly for what felt like several minutes.

"That baby looks like the spitting image of you, Shelly Bean," she whispered faintly.

"He's my son, Mommy… Mom," he faltered. "His name is Stephen."

Mary sank down onto a nearby chair. "This is what you couldn't tell me, isn't it?" Her gaze flicked over to Penny. "Good Lord, aren't you the girl that was engaged to Leonard?"

Penny moved closer to Sheldon, although she wasn't sure if she did it to draw comfort from him or to protect him. "Not anymore," she answered. "Sheldon and I have been together for over a year."

Mary's eyes flitted back to Stephen. "You had a baby out of wedlock," she said, sounding as if she might cry. "Oh, Shelly, I expected as much from your brother and sister. They're both dumb as soup, but you…"

"It's not his fault," Penny put in quickly. She put her hand on Sheldon's arm. "He's tried to do the right thing by both of us, every step of the way, even when it would have been easier to just walk away from all of this."

Miraculously, hearing her defend him had the most amazing effect on Sheldon. He squared his shoulders and straightened to his full height. He shifted Stephen around so he could put his arm around Penny and draw her to his side. "I love her, and she is the mother of my child," he said quietly. "If she's not welcome here, then we will all be leaving together."

Mary stared at her youngest in bewilderment for a moment. Doubtless, this was the first time in his life that he had ever taken such a calm but uncompromising stance with her. "No need for that," she said at last. "Why don't you come in and sit down?"

The rest of their visit was somewhat constrained, but Mary got over her initial surprise enough to bounce Stephen on her knee and exclaim what a strong, handsome boy he was. She kept looking at her son with a combination of confusion and a growing awareness that he was no longer her little boy. Penny said little but kept to the background, seeming to sense that Mary was dealing with not one shock that day, but two. When Stephen started to fuss, Penny reclaimed him. She took him back into Sheldon's old bedroom to feed him and then put him down for a nap. Sheldon excused himself and followed her. He watched her gazing blissfully down at their son, who was waving his chubby fists in contentment as he nursed.

She looked up at him with a smile. "I guess I'm beginning to understand why your mom has such a hard time treating you like an adult," she whispered. "I love Stephen so much that right now, I don't ever want to let him go."

He sat down next to her on the bed. "My mother loves me, but she's always struggled to accept me as I am. She even thought my single-minded pursuit of science was a sign of insanity. I know you will do better by our son."

"What if your mom thinks her son deserves better than an unemployed waitress who couldn't even finish community college?"

"First of all, it's none of her business," he said firmly. "And second, if she can't see beyond your education or employment status to see how amazing you are, and how much you love me and Stephen, then she doesn't deserve to know you."

Penny gave him a troubled look. "Sheldon…" she began.

He gave her a crooked smile. "You know I don't give up easily. I won't stop telling you how much I love you or how much I admire your abilities until you believe it yourself."

She looked away for a moment, and then turned back to him with a tremulous smile. "And then you'll stop?" she asked, half-teasingly.

"No. By that time, I suppose it will have become a habit."

Stephen had fallen asleep, so Penny carefully laid him in his bassinette. With her arms unencumbered, she came up to Sheldon and gave him a hug.

"I don't want to mess this up," she murmured. "I'm scared… scared that you'll come to your senses and wonder what you're doing with me. Scared that saying how I feel might somehow give you all the power in our relationship. Every time in the past I told a guy I loved him, he dumped me or cheated on me. I can't stand the idea of letting a guy have control over me like that."

Sheldon thought about that. He used to have an intense need to regulate and oversee every aspect of his life, and he couldn't say how much that was still a part of his personality. But over the past year, he had also been forced to make peace with the fact that he was in control of almost nothing. He knew if it hadn't been for Penny, he probably wouldn't have survived that brutal transition. "I believe you would tell me that it is a positive step to acknowledge your feelings," he said. "I know I've often been difficult and domineering in the past, but I'm learning what it means to put your needs and Stephen's ahead of what I want. I might not be able to do it perfectly, but I am trying. I don't know how to prove that you can trust me, but in time, I hope I can."

Penny gave him another shaky smile. "Everything's changing so fast, I feel like I'm going a million miles an hour. I'm still trying to make sense of it all. Please be patient with me."

He reached out and took her hand. "I'm not going to leave you ever again," he promised.

* * *

They stayed for four more days visiting Sheldon's family. Penny even got to meet his older brother. Junior (short for George Jr.) was just as tall as Sheldon, but looked like he weighed twice as much. He had been a linebacker on his high school football team, and Penny could believe it. He was surprisingly good with Stephen, coaxing baby giggles from him by making silly faces. Mary explained that Junior's girlfriend had a son, now two years old, from a previous relationship. From the look on Sheldon's face, he didn't know about that either. His brother was taken aback when Sheldon asked a few questions about his family.

"Anna's off work tomorrow if you want to say hi," Junior offered hesitantly.

"We'd like that," Penny put in quickly. Junior may have tormented Sheldon when they were children, but she could see he'd also gotten the impression Sheldon thought he was too good for the rest of his family. Maybe he had in the past, but she knew he had changed. She really wanted him to have a second chance with his brother. That meant they ended up staying longer than they anticipated. Mary insisted on them staying at her house, even though they were all "crammed in like sardines", as she put it. They not only got to meet Junior's girlfriend Anna and her son Mason (who was fascinated by Stephen), but Missy also showed up with her boyfriend. Mary's tiny house was filled with people, laughter and loud conversation as everyone raised their voices to be heard above the din. By lunch on the third day, Penny wasn't surprised to look around and find that Sheldon had disappeared. Handing Stephen over to Mary (who was happy for any excuse to hold her grandson), she excused herself and went looking for him. He was holed up in a small bedroom that had been converted to a home office and was staring at the computer screen, muttering under his breath at the slow internet service.

"It's kind of crazy out there, isn't it?" she asked, pulling up a chair beside him.

He favored her with a quick smile. "It's been just the two of us for so long. Sometimes I almost wish we could go back." After a pause, he added, "I didn't really get along very well with my siblings when I was younger."

Penny feigned shock. "No! You?"

He glanced over at her again. "Sarcasm, right?"

"Yup." She peered at the screen. "So what're you doing?"

He tilted the monitor towards her. "I'm attempting to find us a place to live which is reasonably close to Caltech."

"Did they hold your job for you?" Penny asked, a little surprised.

He shook his head. "No, but I emailed Dr. Seibert, and he told me they have an opening for an applied sciences professor. I've set up an interview with Gablehauser on Monday, but I believe they will re-hire me. I would have to teach other classes besides advanced physics, but it's the only available job they have right now."

"What about your research?" she asked.

He shrugged, looking dejected. "I would have to do that on my own time."

She felt a sharp pang of regret, knowing how difficult it must be for him to be shoehorned into a position he didn't really want just to provide for her and Stephen. "So tell me about these apartments you found," she said, changing the subject.

He had winnowed through a long list of rental options and narrowed it down to a few choices. Penny rejected a few of them outright: not enough light, too close to a busy street. Then she pointed to a listing which hadn't made Sheldon's cut. "What about this one?" she asked. "I really like the way this one looks."

He glanced over it. "It's a converted carriage house that used to be a part of a huge estate. The main house was torn down and the land subdivided into individual lots. The owner is an elderly woman, which means if she passes away, her heirs could decide to sell the building. It's too much risk."

"Yeah, but look at those arched windows, and the balcony, and all the natural light. This is way better than any of those boring old apartments you were looking at. Can we at least go see it, please?" she begged.

He sighed. "I suppose, at the worst, it will just be a waste of a couple hours of my time."

"That's the spirit," she said with a grin, kissing his cheek.

They left the next day for Pasadena. Sheldon was extremely relieved to get away from the mad cacophony of the impromptu family reunion. In his mind, the only part of that second visit that hadn't been sheer torture was when he took Stephen to visit Meemaw. He was already planning to come back to Texas at some point in the not too distant future. It was very important to him that his son have a chance to get to know his great-Meemaw.

Back in Pasadena, he and Penny spent the next couple of days living out of a hotel while they were apartment hunting. Although he had already half-suspected it, he had to admit Penny was right. The converted carriage house was spacious, open, and perfectly suited to his little family's needs. There was only one neighbor in the unit next door, and she traveled most of the time for business. He signed the rental contract that day. Now came the hard part. He needed to go back to his old place in order to pack up and move his belongings. He'd already had a phone conversation with Leonard that had ended with his former best friend hanging up on him. He knew a confrontation was inevitable.


	18. Chapter 18

Sheldon paused in front of the door to his former apartment. He was dreading what was sure to be an unpleasant scene with his erstwhile best friend. Through no fault of his own, Sheldon had come to love the woman that Leonard had always thought of as his from almost the first moment he laid eyes on her. It didn't matter that Leonard knew nothing about her at the time; she was the hottest woman he had ever seen in real life, and that was enough to motivate him to call dibs on Penny.

At the time, Sheldon had found the idea ludicrous. As Leonard was well aware, he had no interest in pursuing any kind of relationship, either romantic or sexual, with anyone. Back then, he saw interacting with people as a necessary evil. He didn't want to get to know the new neighbor across the hall, no matter how aesthetically pleasing she might be. He had to admit, however, that he owed his current happiness to Leonard's infatuation. Without it, he probably would never have gotten to know Penny, to gradually come to think of her as a friend, and to eventually learn to trust and rely on her, even if he often struggled to understand her. Their strong bond of friendship had deepened into something more. Sheldon was absolutely convinced that she was the only woman he would ever love. What's more, he believed that Penny felt the same way about him. She had a lot of emotional baggage from past relationships to deal with, starting with her cold and critical mother. Sheldon now realized what a gift his own mother's love had been, even though they often drove each other crazy. He hoped that in time, Penny could overcome her own past and allow herself to believe in his love for her. He would do anything for her, even attempt to apologize to Leonard. With that thought firmly fixed in his mind, he knocked on the door.

Leonard opened the door, and his face darkened when he saw his former roommate. "Oh look, it's the traitor," he scowled. Arms crossed over his chest, he barred the doorway with his diminutive frame as if to deny Sheldon entrance.

"I know I owe you an apology," Sheldon answered. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. Penny was yours, and I took her away from you."

"It was more than that! Penny was my destiny! I fell in love with her from the moment I saw her!" Leonard cried angrily.

Sheldon shifted nervously. He still hated when people yelled at him. "I admit that I wronged you, but I don't know how to make amends. I can't give Penny back to you, as she is not mine to give. Nor could I even bring myself to urge her to reconsider you as a romantic partner. I need her; our son needs her… and I love her. I will deeply regret if this causes a permanent break in our friendship, but my family must come first, even above my oldest friend."

"Family? A baby that was an accident and a woman who's just using you?"

For a moment, Sheldon was too startled to answer. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Oh, come on," Leonard drawled. "Penny doesn't have feelings for you. She's just using you as a meal ticket. She'll be gone as soon as something better comes along. I mean, she hasn't told you she loves you, has she?"

Sheldon shook his head wordlessly.

"Yeah, good luck with that one, buddy," Leonard drawled, and even Sheldon couldn't miss the sarcasm heavy in Leonard's voice.

Sheldon sighed. "What you don't seem to understand is that I'm not insecure about my relationship with Penny. I don't require verbal assurances. Her actions have already proven over and over again her true feelings for me. Now, will you allow me access to my own apartment, or must I call the police?" he asked pointedly. "My name is still the one on the lease, as you recall."

Leonard gaped stupidly at his former roommate. He seemed unable to think of a single thing to say in the face of Sheldon's calm self-possession. Sullenly, he stepped aside so Sheldon could enter.

"Since you know how much I hate to apologize, I had hoped that doing so voluntarily would demonstrate my sincerity, especially where you and Amy are concerned." Sheldon tried once more to get through to his possibly former best friend.

His words had an effect, but not the one he intended. Leonard gave a start. "What about me and Amy? There's absolutely nothing going on between us. Why, what did she say to you?"

Sheldon peered at him in confusion. "She didn't say anything about you. Why should she?"

"Uh… never mind. I'll just be in my room. If you need help packing… don't come to me." With that, he scurried away to his room.

Sheldon was momentarily baffled by the change in Leonard's demeanor, but he was mostly just relieved that he showed no more inclination to hang around to harass him. He boxed up the contents of his bedroom as quickly as he could. It really didn't take that long, in part because he was exceptionally well-organized, and in part because he had so few mementos. Most of what was in his bedroom was his clothing and several boxes of comic books.

He moved into the common areas and finished packing his things. He planned to stow everything in the basement storage unit until Penny could drive over and help him take his belongings to their new place. He frowned as he anticipated sore muscles making so many trips up and down four flights of stairs. He had considered asking Raj and Howard for help, but Penny had discouraged that idea. The two men usually sided with Leonard, and she believed it would sour his relationship with them now if he asked them to do something as thankless as helping him move.

* * *

Early the next morning, Penny drove him over to Caltech for his interview with Gablehauser. The interview was fairly brief. The only thing his supervisor really wanted to know was if he'd spent the past eight months in a mental health facility, and if he had any intention of taking off like that again. Sheldon assured him the answer was no on both counts. He also decided to tell Gablehauser that he now had a son and was living with the boy's mother. Gablehauser stared at him for a long moment and asked if this was one of his pranks. When Sheldon assured him it wasn't, he scrubbed a hand over his face.

"I guess that would explain it," he muttered under his breath. "Especially for someone as tightly wound as you." He shuffled some papers on his desk. "Well, the job's yours if you want it. You understand you'll be teaching undergraduate level classes for a while?"

Sheldon gripped the handle of his new briefcase (a gift from Penny, and a step up from his old messenger bag) as he tried not to wince. "Yes, Dr. Gablehauser. I'm aware that you filled my research position in my absence. In time, however, I hope to regain that position. I greatly prefer research to teaching."

"I can't promise you anything, Dr. Cooper. You know how much our research funding depends on generous contributions from our sponsors. All we can do is hope we have a good year with a lot of donations coming our way. In the meantime, as the most junior member of our faculty, you will need to serve on a minimum of three committees and advise five grad students."

This time, Sheldon felt his shoulders slump as he contemplated the horrors of departmental bureaucracy. "Yes, sir," he finally mumbled.

Gablehauser smiled broadly and rubbed his hands together. "Good. You can start tomorrow. I'll have the committee meeting minutes sent to your new office."

"My new office?" Sheldon asked faintly.

"Your replacement, Dr. Perez, was given your old office. Check with the HR department tomorrow morning when you come in; I'm sure they'll find a space for you somewhere."

That didn't sound very promising, but there was little Sheldon could do except agree to whatever terms Gablehauser proposed. He supposed he should be grateful that Caltech even had a job opening for him, but his involuntary absence had caused his career to suffer a significant setback. It was even worse than the time he announced he had proven string theory, only to find out he was the victim of a mean-spirited practical joke pulled by his three closest friends. More than ever, he appreciated knowing Penny and Stephen would be waiting for him at home, at the end of every long, torturous day full of committees and grad students.

* * *

Penny busied herself trying to unpack while also caring for their son. She could only thank her lucky stars that Stephen wasn't close to crawling yet. If he was, he would certainly have been into everything. She had made several trips over to 2311 North Robles to pick up the last of Sheldon's things from the basement. Then she started on emptying the storage facility that had been rented for her belongings. It was rather sobering to see everything she owned packed up in boxes and crammed into a ten by ten foot unit. Once she retrieved a few of her things, their apartment became an odd mix of her own brightly colored décor and Sheldon's style, which seemed to be anything geeky, nerdy or science-y. His Batman cookie jar was now sitting out on the kitchen counter, next to a small (and sadly, empty) wine rack.

She heard the door open, and a moment later, Stephen's adorably infectious baby laugh. Smiling, she followed the sound to find Sheldon sitting on the loveseat, bouncing the little boy on his knee.

"How was your first day back at Caltech?" she asked, sitting down next to him.

He sighed. "Extremely trying. My new office is in the basement. I'm teaching two rather basic classes: Applied Thermodynamics and Quantum Electronics. I reviewed over two hundred pages of committee minutes today, and I will have to advise grad students as well."

"It's not fair that they should dump all the stuff everyone else doesn't want on you," Penny protested.

"Fair has little to do with it," he grumbled.

"Did you see the guys at lunch?" she asked hesitantly, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer.

"Yes, we had lunch together, just like always, although Leonard still isn't speaking to me."

"Well, that's better than I expected. I was so worried he was gonna try to make your life a living hell because we're together now." Sheldon had told her about Leonard's odd behavior at the apartment. She wished she had been there to see Leonard's face and hear the tone of his voice so she could know exactly what was going on inside his head. Although she didn't want to worry Sheldon, she was concerned that Leonard was up to something.

"He always had unrealistic expectations of you," Sheldon mused. "He was planning what your children would look like on the very first day you moved into our apartment building."

Penny laughed. "That does sound like him." Then she sobered. "He always used to say we were friends, but that wasn't really true. He was really nice to me when he had a crush on me, and when we were dating. But when Priya came along, he dropped me like a hot potato. He even came around one time to say we couldn't hang out anymore because she didn't want him spending time with his ex. I got that, but it meant I didn't see any of you guys for a while. It was really lonely. I even missed Howard's sleazy one-liners," she said with a chuckle.

"I strongly suggest you never apprise him of that fact," he commented, one eyebrow raised.

She grinned at him and took his hand. "You were the only one who cared enough to come spend time with me. I don't think I ever told you how much that meant to me." With a sigh, she said, "Leonard and I were never friends. He just pretended we were to get into my pants. And I only went out with him because I was using his desperately eager attention to feel better about myself."

Sheldon frowned thoughtfully. "Are you certain there is no vestige of that dynamic between us?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

He paused. For him, trying to talk about emotions was like speaking Mandarin. He often thought he was communicating clearly, only to later find he had said something very different than what he meant. "Your facility with emotions is something I admire because I am almost completely lacking in empathy. So if what I say is offensive, you must understand that is not my intention."

She sat up straighter. "Okay, I'm listening."

"I am in love with you. You're the only person who could possibly make all this upheaval in my life bearable. And the feelings I have for you are only rivaled by those I have for our son." He glanced fondly over at the swing where Stephen was sleeping. "I believe you love me as well. Your actions toward me certainly demonstrate an unprecedented level of caring and compassion that, at least in the past, I didn't merit. I also noted that when I commented that you loved both Stephen and myself, you didn't protest or correct me. I don't care if you ever say the words, but if you are unable to accept love because you still suffer from low self-esteem, then our relationship is doomed to failure. You have extraordinary abilities, and perhaps you need to direct them internally. Under these circumstances, I believe the saying, 'physician, heal yourself', is applicable."

Penny stared at him. She tried to form a response, but for once, she had no idea what to say. Finally, she answered, "Maybe you're right. I… I'll think about it."

He nodded. "That's all I can ask."


	19. Chapter 19

Over the next several days, Penny couldn't stop thinking about what Sheldon had said to her. He often expressed his feelings like they were simple statements of fact; perhaps in his mind, they were. She wanted it to be that simple for her too. Maybe she just needed more time.

She had just finished feeding Stephen his lunch of baby cereal and strained peas—she had no idea how he could stomach the stuff—when she heard the doorbell chime. As she peered through the tiny barred window set into the door, her first thought was to wish the person on the other side couldn't see her. Amy was standing on her doorstep.

"Penny? Let me in, please. I need to talk to you," she called.

Penny stomach lurched. She'd been dreading this confrontation and had no idea how Amy would react. But Amy didn't look angry, just upset, and she felt she owed it to the girl who once called her "bestie" to at least hear her out. So she opened the door and reluctantly let Amy in.

Shestepped into the apartment and glanced around without much interest as Penny ushered her into the living room. Stephen was there, playing happily in his swing. Amy stared at him for a few seconds. "He looks so much like Sheldon," she murmured.

Penny was watching her curiously. The vibe she was getting from Amy was more agitated than angry, with a strong overlay of guilt. The two women sat down at opposite ends of Penny's old loveseat, which wasn't enough distance for Penny. She vividly remembered the coffee can full of coins that Amy used to carry around in her purse.

"I don't know where to start," Amy began. She was twisting her hands in her lap. "At first, when you and Sheldon went missing, we were all so worried. We thought something terrible had happened. Then after a while, you start imagining all these crazy scenarios. I mean, Sheldon's brilliant, and the two of you always had this close-knit bond… maybe you ran off together. Of course," she added with a rueful smile, "we also discussed the possibility that either you killed him, or he killed you, and the murderer was on the run. It was the not knowing that was so hard, the uncertainty that maybe it was my fault…"

"Oh, Amy, no! None of this was your fault," Penny began, reaching out to her.

Amy pulled away. "I was just so confused and hurt and lonely," she moaned. "And when you came back with him, with a baby… I told myself we were even, but we weren't."

"Even? What are you talking about?" Penny asked. A cold feeling of dread was crawling up her spine.

"I'm so sorry. I told him it could never happen again, but I was weak. I slept with him," Amy whispered. She hid her face in her hands and started sobbing. Penny couldn't move. She couldn't form a coherent thought. As she sat frozen, a rattling noise broke her daze. Stephen had thrown his toys to the ground and was starting to fuss. Penny rose and slid him out of his swing. "He needs to be changed," she murmured, not caring what Amy thought. Mostly she just needed an excuse to get out of the room, away from Amy.

In a few minutes, Stephen was clean, dry and happy again as Penny went through the motions of diapering by rote. She cuddled her baby close in the rocking chair, a ritual which always soothed both of them. Looking down at the tiny dark eyelashes fanning out on his chubby cheeks, she was struck by how sweet and innocent he looked. His guileless expression reminded Penny so much of Sheldon. In that moment, she knew. She trusted Sheldon completely; he would never cheat or deceive her. She didn't know what was behind Amy's strange story, except that her mysterious sixth sense told her Amy believed she was telling the truth. Maybe Sheldon had slept with Amy before the abduction. Penny wasn't happy about that idea, but she could forgive him for not telling her. Up until a few months ago, the trauma from his past had still haunted him. Maybe he had tried to give Amy what she wanted, and it hadn't ended well.

Amy was still waiting for her in the living room when Penny reappeared. "I put him down for a nap," Penny said, with a nod of her head toward the nursery. "We should be able to talk now. I just need to know: this happened before we were abducted, right?"

Amy recoiled. "No, of course not! I wouldn't do that to you. You were my bestie."

"Then when…?"

"It was about a month before you and Sheldon came back."

Penny shook her head as if to clear cobwebs from it. "I don't understand. How could you have slept with Sheldon if he wasn't even here?"

" _Sheldon_? We're not talking about Sheldon. The way things were going with him, I thought I'd be an old woman before we got to that point. I'm talking about Leonard."

Penny blinked at her, trying to wrap her head around what Amy had just said. Her first thought was, _I knew Sheldon would never cheat on me_. The enormous relief that she felt almost obscured her initial shock. "So wait a minute… you slept with _Leonard_?" she asked incredulously.

Amy wailed, burying her face in her hands again as she nodded. "I'm sorry," she cried. "After you came back, I tried to tell myself it just made us even, but I still felt so guilty."

Penny eased closer and put her hand on Amy's shoulder. "Amy, stop. I'm not mad at you," she said, and it was true. She was torn between a morbid desire to know how it had happened and an equally dark-humored urge to pity Amy that her first time had been with Leonard. "It's exactly like you said. I don't have any right to be angry with you."

"It wasn't just that. There's more," Amy said. She stared down at her lap. "On the day we put your things into storage, we all got together afterward at my place. We were going to drink the rest of your wine as a toast to your memory. It was my idea, and we weren't allowed to keep flammable liquids in the storage unit anyway. But Bernie and Howard left early, and then Raj had to go home to walk Cinnamon, so it was just Leonard and me and several bottles of wine. I wasn't planning to sleep with him, you know. The problem was, it was my first time, so it's not like I had condoms stocked up. He didn't have any either, but at the time, I just didn't care."

Penny, reading between the lines, began to feel queasy. "Oh, Amy, tell me you didn't."

"I took a test a couple of days ago. I'm pregnant." Amy put her hands over her face. "I don't know what to do," she whispered.

For a moment, Penny sat frozen with shock, and then felt an enormous wave of pity for her friend. She was out of her seat and next to Amy with her arms around her. "It's okay; we'll figure this out together," she told her, smoothing the straight brown hair from Amy's flushed and tear-streaked face.

Amy looked at her incredulously. "I thought you would hate me."

Penny gave her a wry look. "Hey, I stole your boyfriend; you got knocked up by mine. It's like a redneck soap opera."

Amy stared at her for a moment, and then a little huffing laugh escaped her. It turned into a giggle, and then she was laughing helplessly. It was contagious, and soon Penny started laughing too. Finally, Amy caught her breath and shook her head. "Life was so much easier when all I wanted to do was get one lousy blind date over with so my mother would let me use her George Foreman grill."

Penny had no idea what that meant, but it sent her into a fit of giggles. "Oh, Ames, I missed your quirky sense of humor," she said when she could finally talk again. "Better hang onto it; you're gonna need it. You know, for all that Leonard was always acting like I was the love of his life, we never really had a lot in common. He developed a huge crush on me before he had any idea what kind of a person I was. He also used to poke fun at me because I'm not smart and don't have a college degree, and he hated that I was so independent. I think his ideal woman would look up to him a lot more than I ever did. Now that I think about it, I bet the two of you have a better shot at a long-term relationship that we ever did."

"But you're forgetting one thing," Amy moaned. "You're gorgeous, and I'm not."

Biting her lip, Penny looked her friend up and down carefully. "I know you're happy with your looks just the way they are, but just this once, how do you feel about a makeover?"

Amy frowned. "Shouldn't he love me just the way I am?"

Penny found her comment more than a little ironic, seeing how hard Amy had once tried to make Sheldon over into her idea of the perfect boyfriend. "Of course he should," she replied. "But clothes have nothing to do with who you really are. I bet when you were a little girl, you wanted to be a princess and wear beautiful dresses, not wool and cardigans." In fact, she was certain of it, having been the one who once helped Sheldon buy a tiara for Amy, in lieu of an apology. "How 'bout we make you into a modern day princess?"

Amy's eyes lit up, and she nodded enthusiastically. "Okay, let's go shopping!" she cried.

"We'll have to invite Bernie, too," Penny said. "She's going to flip when she finds out you're finally ready for a makeover." She paused. "Do you think you, me and Bernie could have a girl's night sometime soon? I've really missed you guys."

Amy grinned excitedly. "I'd love to. But Penny…" Her face fell. "Not here. I don't want to see Sheldon for a while."

"I understand," Penny said sympathetically. "I'm just glad to have my friend back."

Amy hugged her. "Besties forever!" she cried.

* * *

That evening after Sheldon came home, Penny was the one who had a lot to share about her day. After Amy left, she had called Bernadette and arranged an evening out. Bernie was thrilled to hear from her, and as predicted, shocked that Amy was finally willing to stop dressing like she raided her grandmother's closet. Bernie also offered to have the next girl's night at her place while the guys got together at Leonard's apartment.

"Just like old times," Penny had commented.

She also told Sheldon all about her unexpected visit from Amy. She didn't tell him about the unplanned pregnancy: that was Amy's secret. Nor was she certain how Sheldon would react to the news that Leonard was the father. Instead, she told him about her plans to get together with her girl friends, and he said he thought it was a good idea.

He disappeared into the bedroom to change from his suit jacket and button-down shirt into his beloved double-layered tees. He came back out holding a small square of paper in his hand and frowning at it curiously. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

She glanced at it, and her eyes widened in shock. "I thought that was lost forever!" she exclaimed. It was the business card for the radio producer. She had forgotten all about meeting Tracy at the mall, and the woman's urging her to contact her father about a job. When she finished telling Sheldon about the strange meeting, he said, "I completely agree with her. This is a career in which you could excel, especially given your newfound empathic abilities. You should call this man tomorrow."

When Sheldon not only complimented her but implied she could do the job even without her new powers of insight, her heart melted. "I had a moment of doubt today, seeing Amy," she said. "For a moment, I panicked. I thought… well, that part's not important. All I needed to do was to look at our son to be reminded of everything that's good about you. And I knew that no matter what the situation, I could trust you." She took a few steps closer until she was standing in front of him and held his hands in both of hers. "I've known that I'm in love with you for a while, but I was scared to say it. Realizing how much I trusted you, even when things looked bad, showed me that I don't need to feel that way with you. I love you."

His face lit up with a huge smile. "I love you too, Penny… so much. I find I was wrong about one thing: I do care that you've said you love me. You make me happier than I can describe."

"I think I understand, because that's exactly how I feel about you," she whispered. She drew him down to her for a kiss, and the rest of the world seemed to melt away.


	20. Chapter 20

Penny stood in front of the full-length mirror. "How about this outfit?" she asked.

Sheldon tried hard to repress a sigh. "The button-down shirt and knee-length skirt are entirely appropriate for a business interview." He had said something similar about the last three outfits she had modeled for him as well.

"Yeah, but this is a radio station. Maybe I should go with something a little trendier?" She ducked back into the closet. "Like this?" she called, emerging a few moments later. Sheldon looked up and paused. His gaze slowly traveled down the length of her body. She was wearing a simple, flowing dress of red satin. The scooped neckline was gathered across the top, where a slit in the fabric was tied shut with a deceptively innocent little bow. The shimmering fabric flowed over her hips and ended flirtatiously at mid-thigh. Strappy black heeled sandals made her legs seem impossibly long.

"I…" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "That is most definitely _not_ suitable for a job interview."

She had been watching him with an amused expression on her face. She broke into a grin and said, "I can't believe I finally found something that makes you speechless."

He rose and took a few steps toward her. "Actually, I find that you leave me in that state more often than you imagine."

Taking that as a compliment, she kissed him. "Okay, I'll change for now, but some evening you're going to come home to find me wearing that dress and nothing underneath." Seeing his stunned expression, she laughed and disappeared into the closet again. "All right, I guess I'll wear that other outfit for my interview."

* * *

Penny was fighting hard to hide her nervousness as she shook hands with Dale Richards. She had learned that Tracy's father was the programming manager for several radio conglomerates in the area, as well as a few local television stations. A large, balding man wearing a creased dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, this interview with him could very well be the break she'd been looking for. She was keenly aware of the need to make a good impression and equally conscious that her professional experience mostly consisted of waitressing.

"Hi, I'm Penny," she said with her best professional-yet-approachable smile. "Your daughter Tracy told me to give you a call. She said you might have a job for me."

Dale gestured to the chair opposite his desk. "Have a seat. Yes, I remember Tracy calling me a few weeks ago, all excited about this young woman she'd met. I couldn't quite understand it. She's never done something like that before, so I guess I'm willing to hear you out."

In just a few moments, he ferreted out that Penny had no radio experience. He didn't let the surprise show on his face when she said her only job experience was waitressing and a few acting gigs spread out over several years. Instead, he just leaned back in his chair and asked why she thought his daughter had recommended her.

"Well, this is gonna sound kind of weird, but I'm really good at reading people. I can tell that you value Tracy's opinion highly, and that you want something to come of this, more for her sake than yours. I can also tell that you're troubled about something, and you're hoping I might help."

Dale's eyebrows shot up. "That's not bad, assuming Tracy didn't tell you any of that. So can you do this little parlor trick by listening to someone, or do you have to see their face?"

Penny shrugged. "Seeing their face makes it easier, of course, but I can hear emotions in the way people talk and by what they say."

Dale rubbed at his face tiredly. "All right then, I'm going to have you listen to some clips from other talk shows. I want you to tell me what you get off of them," he said, making a vague gesture by the side of his head. In less than fifteen minutes, Dale was a believer. Her observations about the people on the recordings were insightful and spot-on. His excitement was obvious, and he was grinning like a little boy with a slingshot.

"I'm certain we'll find a place for you here," he enthused. Glancing at his expensive designer watch, he added, "In fact, there's someone that I've been trying to match up with a co-host for quite some time. He should just be finishing up his segment now. Wanna go meet him?"

She couldn't imagine saying anything but yes to this idea that had him all worked up. So in just a few minutes, they were in his car, headed for a nearby radio station.

"The guy's name is Jake Hawley. I don't suppose you've heard of him?" he asked. Penny just shook her head. "Good, good. You can go into this without any preconceived notions," Dale said cheerfully.

Twenty minutes later, she was beginning to form her own ideas about why Dale had been glad she'd never heard of Jake Hawley. From the moment she had been introduced to him, he had been rude, disgusting, and a complete jerk. In fact, the first words out of his mouth (after he gave her a slow once-over) were, "Too bad we're not on TV; she's got a nice rack."

However, Penny was long used to dealing with guys like him… or a lot worse than him, to be honest. Unlike some of her former Cheesecake Factory patrons, at least he didn't try to pinch her ass. Penny smirked at him, letting him know she wasn't shocked by his bad-boy behavior. "Ooh, was I supposed to be offended by that or flattered? Either way, you missed by a mile."

Her future co-host scowled and then shook his head. "She's nothing but a piece of tail. She won't last long. They never do."

"From what I hear, I just have to outlast you," Penny said pointedly. She let her gaze wander south and then stared challengingly at him. "I'm guessing that won't be too hard."

Dale snickered. "I don't know, Jake. You may have just met your match."

Despite Jake's rudeness, Penny found her new job interesting. Her co-host was often crass, and most of his call-ins were men. She endured a lot of ribald humor with a roll of her eyes and a quick comeback. Before their first show segment had ended, she had pegged Jake as an overgrown adolescent with abandonment issues. She guessed he hadn't had any significant male role models growing up. In a strange, he reminded her of a cruder version of Howard, without the better qualities that had made Bernadette fall in love with her man.

By her second week on the air, Penny found out that the show's demographics were changing. Women especially were starting to tune in to the show in unprecedented numbers. Jake had no idea how to relate to his female listeners, but it didn't matter. It was clear that the ones who called in wanted to talk to Penny, not Jake. At first, it was just a few comments about how they enjoyed hearing her put him in his place on air. But she soon started to draw her callers out by her uncanny ability to tell how they were feeling. Both men and women began to phone in to see how much she could tell about them just from their saying hello. Penny would make comments about their situation that would often have them wondering if she was psychic. She always laughed and said no, she was just good at reading people. Jake was increasingly surly and bitter about Penny's popularity, but he was at least smart enough to know not to burn his bridges. He limited most of his truly nasty comments to the times when they were off-air.

* * *

Penny only needed to be in the studio for two to three hours a day. After work, she would pick up Stephen from the Sheldon-approved daycare facility. And every day when Sheldon came home, she felt tense. She had promised not to say anything about Amy's pregnancy until Amy had a chance to talk to Leonard, but she hated keeping secrets from Sheldon. And she wasn't looking forward to him finding out that his best friend had knocked up his ex-girlfriend.

Amy had finally made up her mind to go ahead with the makeover. She came over one evening after Penny had told Sheldon to make himself scarce because they were having "girl time". She recruited Raj and Howard to organize a CCG tournament over at Leonard's place. When she told him he was having a "guy's night out", the look he gave her was so gratified that she made a mental note to make it a regular event.

Sheldon headed straight over to Leonard's apartment after work. That way, there was no chance of an awkward meeting with his ex-girlfriend. When Amy arrived, Penny already had Stephen set up in his pack & play for some "tummy time" with his toys. She knew it wouldn't last that long, but it was enough time to trim Amy's ragged ends and start giving her pointers on how to apply some basic makeup.

"I want you to try to put this on every day by yourself," Penny instructed, handing her a small makeup kit. Inside were the compacts of foundation, blush and lip gloss she had picked out, knowing what colors would go best with Amy's complexion.

"What about eye shadow and mascara and… and other stuff? Don't I need other stuff?" Amy asked, looking a little panicked.

"Just start with these," Penny reassured her. "Once you've gotten good with this stuff, we'll add the rest. Think of this as Makeup 101."

"I guess I can do that," Amy said dubiously, looking at the cosmetics as if they might bite her.

"Oh, and you want to start texting Leonard again. Keep it light, but make sure you ask him about his work. He loves that," Penny added.

Amy obediently fished out her phone, but then stopped and stared at it as if she'd never seen a cell phone before. With an impatient huff, Penny took it from her. "Hey, just thinking about you. What are you doing?" she read aloud as she typed the message. "Of course, we know exactly what he's doing. He's playing a Mystic Warlords of Ka'a tournament with Sheldon, Raj and Howard. But he doesn't need to know _we_ know that," she said with a mischievous grin.

Penny held out the phone, and Amy pocketed it. "But Penny… what if this doesn't work?" she whined.

Pulling on her hand, Penny led her to the living room. They sat facing each other in a replica of how they had just a few days ago when Amy broke her news.

"I can't promise anything," Penny said gently. "But I know Leonard really well. I know what makes him tick. The one thing that we never had going for us is that I didn't understand his research. To be honest, I only cared as much as I cared about him, which I have to say was never as much as he wanted. Both of you have a deep need to be loved and to be important to someone. If Leonard can get past the fact that you don't look like a model—and let's face it, I don't either—I think the two of you could be perfect for each other."

Amy's hopeful smile at this pronouncement was almost too much for Penny to bear. She'd never done something like this before, and as much as she understood both people involved, she was still scared of messing up. "Thank you, Penny. You really are my best friend!" she cried, throwing her arms around her bestie.

"Don't thank me yet. You can do that after we get Leonard to see the light," Penny muttered.

By the end of the week, Penny judged that Amy was sufficiently experienced in putting on makeup. Taking her out shopping for some new clothes was almost easy in comparison. After a lot of encouragement, Penny and Bernadette finally coaxed her into some clothes that were flattering to her figure and not made of wool.

Amy stared at her reflection in amazement. "I hardly recognize myself," she breathed, smoothing her hands down the coral silk top Penny had paired with dark wash skinny jeans. She wobbled a little in the gold wedge sandals.

"You look beautiful," Bernie said encouragingly.

"You're definitely going to need some practice walking in those," Penny teased, pointing at her heels.

"I can do it," Amy declared confidently, preening in front of the mirror.

"Wow, look at you, Little Miss Go-Getter," Penny laughed. "Okay, we have one more stop to make. Don't freak out: it's the lingerie department."

The three friends left the mall three hours later, and Amy's arms were full of bags and packages. More importantly, she seemed convinced that with Penny and Bernie's help, she might be able to get Leonard to think of her as "girlfriend material". She had already called him and arranged for them to meet that weekend for coffee. The plan was for her to tell Leonard about the pregnancy only if their first "date" wasn't going well. If they hit it off, Penny advised waiting until the second date to tell him.

"Although no later than that," Penny admonished. "You don't want him to think you're keeping secrets from him. Just say you were too nervous to tell him right away."

"That won't be difficult. I _am_ nervous," Amy confessed.

Penny hugged her. "No matter what happens, I'm here for you," she promised.


	21. Chapter 21

Over the next week, Amy met up with Leonard twice. The first time, she asked him to meet her for coffee. When she walked into the coffee shop, Leonard was stunned at her transformation. She was extremely gratified by his reaction as he stammered and told her she looked beautiful. The time passed quickly, and she felt hopeful that things might work out between them. Leonard agreed to go out with her again, this time for dinner. She broke the news to him on that second date. He seemed shocked and said he needed time to think, ending their date early. Amy was now nervous and upset, fearing the worst. Penny did her best to reassure her, but knowing Leonard, she had her doubts.

Penny got a text from Leonard the following evening, asking if they could meet. At first, she wasn't sure it was a good idea. She hadn't seen him in months, since she had yelled at him and stormed out of his apartment. She couldn't get any clue to his emotional state via text. Ultimately, she decided to meet with him for Amy's sake. She left "her boys", Sheldon and Stephen, at home for some father-son bonding time. All she told Sheldon was that she was meeting a friend for coffee, and she wouldn't be out late. She hated deceiving him, but the drama between Leonard and Amy wasn't her secret to share. She couldn't wait for it all to be out in the open.

Fortunately, Leonard seemed relieved to see her, and she couldn't detect any sign that he was holding a grudge. They started out with some awkward small talk. The conversation flowed more smoothly as Penny shared some amusing stories about people who had called in to her show. Then in return, she listened patiently as he described the latest challenges he was having aligning lasers for his new project. After that, he fell silent, toying with his glass. Penny took pity on him and decided to put him out of his misery.

"Amy came by to see me a few days ago. She had something she needed to tell me."

Leonard's eyes widened. "She told you about… about us?" he asked.

Penny nodded. "And other things."

"You mean she told you about…?" He made a vague gesture near his abdomen.

"Yup. I know she's pregnant, and that the baby's yours."

Leonard immediately slumped over, elbows on the table and head cradled in both hands. "What am I going to do?" he moaned. "I need your help. I don't know what to do."

"Do you like her, or was it some meaningless fling?" she asked.

Leonard's head snapped up. "How can you even say that? It was her first time; it meant something to me. I'm not just some jerk who goes around... you know, taking advantage of women. I just don't think she's my type."

"Actually, she's much more your type than I ever was," Penny told him gently. "Except for me, all the women you dated were intelligent, professional women. There was Stephanie, Leslie, Dr. Plimpton, Priya, even Joyce Kim… and then there was me, the broke wanna-be actress who was always mooching off you and Sheldon for food and WiFi. Sure, you thought I was pretty, but Priya was pretty too."

"Priya also cheated on me," Leonard muttered.

"Something that Amy would never do. You know that; she's very loyal to her friends. She's a lot like Sheldon in that," Penny said, smiling softly as she mentioned her boyfriend's name.

Leonard didn't miss the dreamy look on her face. "You really do have feelings for him, don't you?" he asked. There was a tinge of sadness in his voice, but mostly he just sounded curious.

"Yeah, I do," she answered.

"I thought so. You never looked at me that way, not even after we… uh, I guess I shouldn't bring that up," he ended uncertainly.

"It's okay," Penny replied. "Actually, I feel like I owe you an apology. The last time I saw you, we didn't part on very good terms, and I'm partly responsible for that. As you can imagine, I was under a lot of stress, but the situation was hard for both of us. I'd had a lot more time to get used to the idea of Stephen and… everything else," she said quickly, not wanting to bring up her relationship with Sheldon. "And now I know you were dealing with these impossible expectations of a happy reunion while trying to suppress your guilt over Amy. Neither one of us was at our best."

He leaned back in his chair, and his face was slack with astonishment. "That's exactly what it was, except I could never put it into words. The way you can tell what I'm feeling is almost scary."

Penny met his gaze steadily. "My abilities are how I know that you and Amy could be really good together, if you gave it a chance. You see, Amy was always a little bit too much like Sheldon. That's one of the reasons why she was always so frustrated with him. On the other hand, you and Sheldon were roommates for over ten years. Your personalities meshed well, for the most part."

"Unless you count his insane obsession with the thermostat…"

"Which Amy doesn't have."

"Or his crazy schedule…"

"Again, not Amy."

He chuckled. "I guess I kind of see your point." He suddenly dropped his head into his hands. "But she's pregnant," he moaned. "How am I supposed to figure out how I feel about her when there's a baby on the way?"

He wasn't being exactly coherent, but Penny understood. "Having a baby does change everything," she said softly. "But you always wanted to be a dad. Even if things don't work out with you and Amy, you still need to be a part of your kid's life."

He nodded in agreement as he lifted his head to meet her gaze. "I don't want to be one of those dads that only sees their kid once or twice a week. It was like that with my dad, even when he lived with us. He was always too busy with his research to spend time with his kids."

Penny reached across the table and laid her hand on top of his. "You're going to be a better dad than that, I promise," she told him gently.

The pain of his loveless childhood clouded his eyes for a moment, then he sat up straighter. Determination gave a more mature look to his face. "You're right, and the best way to start is to try to work things out with my baby's mother." He squeezed Penny's hand gently and then let go. "I'm sorry I was such a jerk about Stephen. I think I'm starting to understand what you meant about putting him first. He needs his dad as much as he needs you. I'm glad you're trying to make things work with Sheldon."

Penny knew there was a lot more to her relationship with Sheldon than just trying to "make things work" for the sake of a child, but she wasn't about to antagonize Leonard. He had just started to come to terms with all these changes that life had thrown at him so abruptly. So instead, she just smiled and thanked him, and with a lighter heart, headed home to the two most important men in her life.

Sheldon came home the next evening looking a little wild-eyed. He paced back and forth across the living room several times while holding his son tightly in his arms. Every so often, he would peer at Stephen and mutter to himself. Penny watched him with trepidation. She was fairly certain that Leonard had decided to share the news about Amy's pregnancy, and Sheldon was clearly having trouble coping with it. Finally, he asked Penny to sit down so they could talk. She settled next to him on the couch.

"I think I know what's bothering you," she began. "Does this have something to do with Leonard?"

His head jerked upward in surprise. "It does." He resumed rubbing circles on Stephen's back, and Penny wasn't sure if the action was meant to comfort him or his son.

"And Amy too?" she asked gently.

He sucked in a deep breath. "Someone told you then?"

She glanced at him sympathetically and nodded. She picked up Stephen and set him down in his playard, already stocked with his favorite toys. Returning to her boyfriend, she wrapped her arms around him as if she could shield him from this unwelcome news. "Amy came to me for advice a couple of weeks ago. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I promised her I wouldn't tell until she could talk to Leonard, and _he_ deserved to hear it from her, not from you blurting it out." She softened that comment by laying a hand on his arm. "I didn't want to put you in a position of trying to keep a secret from your friends. I know how stressful that would be for you."

He nodded. "Apology accepted. Under the circumstances, I believe you made the best possible decision. However, I was concerned that you might be hurt by Leonard's actions. Are you?" he asked, peering closely at her face.

She laughed a little at his earnest expression, combined with the way he still struggled to understand her emotions. It was best, she had found, to simply tell him how she was feeling. Trying to make him guess based on her facial cues was pointless. "No, of course not. I'm just a little surprised I didn't pick up on any weird vibes between them. Then again, I've barely seen either of them since the night we returned." She thought back to Leonard's offer to help her raise Stephen and his careless dismissal of his best friend. It was another thing she didn't want to tell Sheldon. He was so happy to be back in the good graces of his clique that Penny couldn't hurt him by revealing that none of them were the best of friends to him. Instead, she asked, "Are you okay, honey? I know that Amy meant a great deal to you. You were often possessive of her, even if you didn't want to be intimate with her."

"After he told me, I came close to punching him right there in the cafeteria," he growled. "The only thing which ameliorates the situation is that he is committed to being an involved parent, and he intends to support Amy in whatever way she will allow. Still, she deserved better than to be seduced by him. "

Penny bit her lip and was silent. In her mind, Amy had always been too focused on forcing Sheldon into a physical relationship that he wasn't ready for. Neither she nor Leonard had come clean about their affair until circumstances forced Amy's hand. Instead, both of them had tried to keep their significant others in the dark. "Amy was always so desperate for affection," she said quietly. "And Leonard's the exact same way. If they're lucky, maybe they can both be what the other needs. Plus, there's a baby on the way. You know, babies are sort of pre-programmed to love their parents unconditionally. It could work. I hope it does."

Stephen had started to squirm, and Sheldon set him gently down on the floor, watching him with an eagle eye to make sure he couldn't get into anything he shouldn't. "I would die for my son," Sheldon said quietly, "but children are a huge amount of work. I certainly hope they know what's in store for them."

Penny laughed again. "Well, they'd better not hear it from you. They have enough to deal with right now. If they're going to work things out, the last thing they need is you telling them everything that could go wrong in raising a baby."

"I am merely being realistic and anticipating potential dangers," he said haughtily.

Penny's grin widened. It wasn't often anymore that she caught Sheldon getting up on his high horse, but when he did, she had the perfect solution. She pulled him toward her by hooking a finger into the collar of his button-down shirt, and then she kissed him senseless. "Thinking about potential dangers right now?" she teased as she released him.

He glanced quickly at Stephen, who was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, playing with a set of plastic keys. Then he cast a wistful smile in the direction of their bedroom. "No, actually I was thinking about that red dress."


	22. Chapter 22

After two months at her new job, Penny was starting to think she had found her calling. Dale told her on an almost daily basis how good she was for business, and even Jake had cut back a little on his crude comments. Maybe he had just given up. The one thing that put a pall on her happiness was how clearly miserable Sheldon was in his own respective work situation. Every night, he would come home and she could see the tension in the way he carried himself. Since he owed Gablehauser for rehiring him, he was attempting to cooperate with the incessant demands placed on him by departmental obligations. But he hated serving on committees, where he invariably thought everyone was wrong, and it would be so much easier if they did things his way. Unsurprisingly, few of his fellow committee members agreed with him. Nor did he enjoy teaching very much. He said trying to instruct undergraduate students was an exercise in futility.

One night, Sheldon came home unusually quiet. "I can see you've got something on your mind," she prompted after he had set down his briefcase and kissed both her and Stephen.

He nodded and took a seat on the sofa, motioning for her to join him. "You know that going back to work at Caltech hasn't been easy for me," he began. "As much as I enjoy being back in a familiar environment, it galls me to spend my time on meaningless bureaucratic details. I hardly have any time during my work day to develop my unified theory. Leonard, Raj and Howard are trying to be supportive, but I think they believe I have brought this upon myself."

"That's not true at all," she said quickly. "At least, _I_ don't think that."

He took a deep breath and blurted out, "Be that as it may, I want to quit my job at Caltech."

Penny saw the determination in his face, along with a strong hint of nervousness. "Wow, that's a huge change. I thought working at Caltech was your dream job."

He shook his head. "Being a research professional at Caltech was my dream, but every moment I waste my time with committee minutes, I see that dream slipping further away. After my disappearance, Gablehauser gave my position away to another physicist. I can't blame him for that, and I do appreciate that he was willing to rehire me after a long unexplained absence. But as a professor, I don't have time to work on my research during the day, and I refuse to sacrifice my evenings or weekends. That's family time," he said seriously, and Penny's heart skipped a beat at the intense look he gave her. "If I continue down this path, I will never be able to develop my hypothesis, if I can even call it mine," he added ruefully.

Penny came closer and put her arms around him. "Honey, you're one of maybe five people on the planet who could even begin to make heads or tails of this idea you were given. You've been working on it for months. That alien might have given you a head start, but the rest of it is all yours. I know you've been frustrated at work; in fact, you've had one setback after another in your career for years. If you think this is best, then I think you should go for it."

He hesitated. "I have some savings, but leaving Caltech would mean that I would not have a reliable source of income for some time."

Penny instantly realized that this was the source of much of his anxiety. It must go against every principle his mother had ever taught him to hint that he might not be able to support his family. "So?" she answered lightly. "I have my job, and it pays pretty well. Besides, after almost a year of living with nothing, not even the clothes on our backs, I can't believe you think I care about how much money you make. You need to follow your dreams, no matter what." She reached out and took his hand. "We'll make them happen together."

His eyes lit up, and he smiled down at her. "I never understood what people meant when they talked about being blessed, but now I do. Thank you for believing in me. I love you," he said as he bent down to kiss her.

She pulled away after a moment and looked into his dark blue eyes. "When I'm at work, listening to people call in with their problems, I think to myself how lucky I am to have you. I can't imagine my life without you. When I remember the way things were going with me and Leonard, I think getting abducted was the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, no matter how awful it was, it brought us together." She had never felt this way before about anyone. He was simply a part of her. "I love you too," she whispered and was rewarded by one of his rare, uninhibited smiles that seemed to light up his entire face. Just for his benefit, she whispered them again before he claimed her lips with his.

* * *

Sheldon's resignation surprised all his peers. Gablehauser even made a half-hearted attempt to convince him to stay, although Sheldon imagined that was more to avoid the hassle of finding a professor to replace him mid-term. On his last day at Caltech, Raj choked up, Howard awkwardly offered to help however he might need, and Leonard actually gave him a quick, awkward hug. Kripke made a point to stop by his office to jeer at him for giving up. For once, Sheldon didn't react to Kripke's taunts. He was leaving to focus on his research. If he was successful, he could finally put the petty politics of academia behind him.

He started working from home, converting the dining room (which they never used) into his home office. He set up several whiteboards and installed baby gates in the doorway, anticipating that his son would soon be mobile. He quickly fell into a routine, working for several hours early in the morning and then taking a break to spend time with Penny and Stephen.

One night as he emerged from his office, he found her sitting on the living room floor. Stephen was next to her, up on his hands and knees. He rocked back and forth excitedly, and Penny was trying to encourage him to move his hands.

"He's going to be crawling soon," Sheldon remarked, gazing at his son with equal parts pride and worry.

"I think he's almost got it," she said with an adoring smile at their son. "In a few more weeks, he'll be getting into everything."

Sheldon experienced a brief surge of panic at that thought, but their apartment had already been baby proofed for months with every conceivable lock, cover and gate. He returned his attention to his family. "You are such a wonderful mother," he said softly. "You take such good care of our son. I love you both so much."

"I love you too, honey. And try not to look so worried. You know you installed all those outlet covers and cabinet latches months ago," Penny replied with a grin, once again seeming to read his mind. She watched Stephen fondly as he pushed up to his hands and knees. Once in that position, he rocked back and forth excitedly, but soon he started squalling in frustration.

Penny picked him up and rocked back and forth, humming a tune which Sheldon, to his delight, recognized as "Soft Kitty". Soon Stephen's head drooped onto his mother's shoulder, and his eyes closed. Penny sank down onto the couch and curled into Sheldon's embrace, still holding their son.

"I don't know if you heard, but Amy had an ultrasound today," she commented. "She called me to let me know. It's too early to know if it's a boy or a girl, but it's healthy."

"Yes, I got a text from Leonard. I was going to tell you."

She nodded, but then sniffed and a tear rolled down her cheek. Sheldon was by her side instantly. Wrapping his arms around her, he murmured, "There, there." She giggled a little despite her apparent sorrow. After a moment, she wiped her eyes and sighed.

"I'm jealous. Not about her and Leonard, of course. I'm really happy that they're trying to make things work. But I'm jealous of Amy being pregnant. I know it sounds awful, since she never even meant for this to happen, but I want that. I want to know what it's like to have a baby be a part of me, to hold him inside my own body, to feel him kick and turn as he's growing. I guess it's stupid."

Sheldon was silent for a moment, and then he asked, "Is that what you would tell one of your callers, that it was stupid?"

He felt her shake her head against his chest. "No, I would say that what she was feeling was a natural longing. If it's not possible for her to conceive, she needs to acknowledge and grieve for that loss before she can move on. And then I would encourage her to keep a list of all the good things in her life somewhere where she can look at it whenever she's feeling sad."

He kissed the top of her head. "That sounds like very astute advice. I think you should follow it."

She smiled at him. "I already know what the two best things in my life are: you and Stephen. I also have my friends and a real career now and a place to live that really feels like home. I'm truly blessed. Thank you for reminding me of that." She lifted her face to his for a kiss. "I married the smartest man on the planet."

Now it was his turn to sigh. "I wish that were true. Even if I was, I still don't know if I could solve this universal theory. So many times, I've thought I was close, only to have my calculations unravel. It's been months, Penny. Perhaps I should ask Gablehauser for my old job back."

"What?" Penny leaned back so she could look into his eyes. "No way! You can't give up already. You hated teaching and all those committees. No, you're not going back to Caltech unless you're sure it's what you really want." She grinned. "You're one of the most stubborn people I know; use that. Tell yourself you _will_ figure this out because you are Sheldon Cooper, PhD!"

He traced a finger down her cheek. "You sound so certain."

"I'd bet my life on it," she replied.

He smiled at her, that sweet, slightly lopsided grin that she had come to adore. "Then I will figure it out, even if it takes years… decades… maybe it's the work of a lifetime. I can't think of a more noble pursuit than that of pure knowledge."

"Maybe not, but I can think of something else worth pursuing," she said coyly. When he looked at her in surprise, she gave him a saucy wink and drew one finger slowly down his chest. His smile widened as he caught her hand and kissed the errant fingertip, a gesture so romantic that Penny thought she might swoon like the heroine in an old-fashioned movie. She stood up carefully, balancing her sleeping child in one arm and tugging her boyfriend to his feet with the other. "Time for bed," she whispered with a seductive smile.


	23. Chapter 23

Sheldon quickly adapted to working from home; in fact, he even found he preferred it. He established a schedule where he would get up early and work while their home was still quiet except for the birds chirping outside. After a few hours, Stephen would wake up, and he would change him and feed him breakfast. Penny woke up later and took their son out on a walk or, twice a week, to play group. After they had lunch together, Penny dropped off Stephen at day care on her way to work. When they came home, he and Penny would have dinner together and then do mundane things like grocery shopping or having their friends over to visit. It was a lifestyle of gentle routine that suited Sheldon perfectly, and he experienced a joy he had never imagined, watching his son grow and develop by the day.

Stephen was talking, or so Sheldon claimed. Penny said that seven months was way too young for that, and he was just making random noises. It was a friendly argument they rehashed for weeks before Penny heard her son say "ba" and reach for a ball at the same time. She conceded defeat without feeling like she had lost anything. In fact, she had gained some bragging rights. Sheldon, meanwhile, was convinced that this was an early sign that his son was a genius, and due to Stephen's unusual origins, she was afraid he was right. It was one thing to raise a super-smart child, and that thought was intimidating enough. It was quite another, however, to be raising a child who was genetically engineered with the potential to surpass both of his parents in intellectual and emotional intelligence. Sometimes, Penny worried if her son would grow up so different that he would have trouble fitting in with other children his age. It made her nervous to think that Sheldon's dream of _Homo novus_ might be fulfilled in his son.

There was another topic which also indirectly caused Penny undue stress. Her radio show had become enormously popular. It had gotten to the point where they had many more people calling in than Penny could possibly talk to in an hour. Jake kept up his ribald banter on air, usually just a hair shy of saying anything irrevocably offensive. But off air, his comments to her were becoming increasingly bitter and nasty. Not only did she worry about what he might do in his jealousy over her success, but the success itself presented a problem. Penny had already been approached for an interview: nothing fancy, just a little Q&A session on another talk show. She had been putting it off because there was a huge, glaring hole in her past. It was strange and sensational that she and Sheldon had disappeared for almost a year and returned with a baby. She believed that even a cursory look into her background would dig that up. Of course, she had no doubts that she could lie convincingly if needed. The risk lay in the fact that Sheldon and their friends might also need to do so.

She brought up her concerns one evening as all their friends were gathered at their home. Amy, glowing with her pregnancy and holding hands with Leonard, quickly vowed that she would take her bestie's secret to her grave. Bernie agreed, although less vehemently. But Howard and Raj cast worried glances between Sheldon and Leonard. Penny immediately understood their concerns.

"Leonard, you've always been the glue that holds our whole group of friends together," she said. She didn't exactly believe that, but she knew that appealing to his ego was her best chance of getting him on their side. "We need you to not repeat what we told you in confidence. Will you do that? I know it's a lot to ask, but Sheldon's been your best friend for over ten years."

Leonard sighed. "Do you really have that little faith in me after all we've been through together?"

Penny crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. "I seem to recall some experiment in the Arctic where you totally screwed Sheldon over."

"That was a long time ago. I've changed!" he protested.

Penny tried not to let it show on her face, but she wasn't convinced.

"I think you're looking at this all wrong," Bernadette spoke up in her little girl voice. "The question isn't what happens to the two of _you_ if someone mentions an alien abduction. The question is, what would happen to the person who talks?"

Penny's eyebrows rose at that statement. She could see Bernie meant nothing malevolent by it, but she sounded like she'd suddenly joined the mafia.

"What do you mean?" Raj asked with a quaver in his voice.

She shrugged. "We're all professionals, and except for Penny, we're all scientists too. If any of us start talking about aliens, we'd become a laughingstock. Leonard, would you get another grant ever again if you started saying Sheldon was kidnapped by aliens?"

Leonard shuddered. "Not a chance, and it's not like there's any definitive proof of his story. All he'd have to do is deny it to make me look certifiable."

"Yeah, and Caltech would try to block him from getting any articles published, or talking to donors, or applying for grants. They'd never back someone who could discredit the whole university so easily," Howard said.

"Furthermore, the validity of all of their past work might be called into question. It may very well be career suicide," Amy added.

Penny nodded. "You guys are so smart. I never thought of it that way. I kept having nightmares of my mom selling my story to the tabloids: alien baby and all that."

Sheldon put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "Our son may be exceptionally brilliant, but as far as we know, he's completely human. There is no need to worry."

"And the fact that we disappeared off the face of the earth for almost a year?" she asked her friends doubtfully.

Howard grinned mischievously at her. "Why, Penny, I'm surprised you didn't come to me sooner. Don't you know I'm a magician?" he asked, lacing his fingers together and flexing his hands, palms outward, until several of his knuckles cracked. Then he produced a laptop from a messenger bag that she hadn't even seen him carry in. He began typing away, muttering to himself. "We need to just leave a few bread crumbs...make it look like… the two of you ran away together...There!" He turned the screen around and displayed his results proudly. Everyone crowded around to look.

"Very nice, dude," Raj said.

"Subtle. Good work," Leonard added. He looked at Sheldon.

"I believe that will be more than sufficient. We appreciate your efforts," Sheldon said.

Howard broke into an incredulous grin. "Do my ears deceive me, or did Shelbot just thank me?"

"Actually, what I said was-" Sheldon began.

Penny stopped him by treading lightly on his foot. "Yes, he did, and don't call him Shelbot."

"Sure," Howard replied, still looking pleased.

Penny reached over and took Sheldon's hand. "Seriously, guys, thank you so much for your help. I love you all, you know." She sniffed and wiped at her brimming eyes. "Wow, I'm not usually this emotional. I guess I haven't been sleeping well lately. My job is a little stressful sometimes…"

"You don't need to make excuses, bestie. We love you too," Amy exclaimed. She rose from the sofa, needing a hand from Leonard for balance, and gave Penny a hug. They both giggled as Amy's baby bump got in the way. People began to say goodnight and leave for their respective homes.

When she and Sheldon were finally alone, she turned to him and said, "I have to admit, of all our friends, Leonard was the one who worried me the most. Is it terrible that it makes me feel better knowing that he has some other reason besides loyalty to you to keep from talking?"

He shook his head. "The so-called Arctic incident was only one of many times when Leonard put his own self-interest ahead of his friends."

She made a face at him. "Look who's talking. You used to be the king of self-interest."

"I can't deny that. That behavior still comes very naturally to me."

She grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "Well, you've come a long way, sweetie."

* * *

As he got ready for bed, Sheldon thought about what Penny had said. Despite—or perhaps because of—her selfless offer to support their family while he worked on his research, he was troubled. He had expected the solution to come to him quickly once he devoted his full attention to it, and was frustrated that, though he had made some progress, the answer still evaded him. He remembered all the names his mother used to call his dad during his frequent bouts of unemployment: lazy, good-for-nothing, and worse. Turning into his father was the last thing he wanted, and the prospect unnerved him. He knew that there was no one else whose opinion he trusted more than Penny's. He found her waiting for him in bed.

She took one look at his face and said, "Something's bothering you, isn't it?" He avoided her gaze as he slid under the covers and spent some time arranging the blankets just so. She waited without comment, knowing he needed time to open up about his feelings.

"My research hasn't yielded any promising results so far," Sheldon finally said. "What if I left a stable position at Caltech for nothing? Every day, I'm confronted by a problem so complex I don't know if I can ever solve it. Instead, I'm allowing my girlfriend to support our family. It's intolerable. It's emasculating. I'm not accomplishing anything in my professional or my personal life. I feel like a failure."

She cuddled against his side and put her arms around him. "Honey, I encouraged you to quit your job at Caltech because I believed in you, and I still do. Look how long it took me to find a career doing something I liked and was good at. You'll figure it out; I know it. Just give it time. And in the meantime, I love my job. I don't mind working while you come up with your universal theory."

Sheldon hung his head. "At times like this, I am certain I don't deserve you."

"No, I feel like I'm the one who don't deserve you **.** But as long as we love each other, everything will work out." She reached for him, always eager for physical touch. He allowed her to pull him back down onto the mattress. She purred and arched into his caresses. He did his best to respond, knowing that intimacy was important to her. But his mind was still full of his perceived failure, and soon she pulled away and looked him in the eye. "You know I have faith in you, right? I want you to know that I trust you with my future… our future," she said, lacing her fingers through his. "I promise I'm going to be by your side no matter what. So I was thinking… I mean, if you want to…" She paused. "Do you want to get married?"

Sheldon closed his eyes. He recognized that she was making a huge sacrifice for him. At any other time, he might have been flattered, knowing how commitment-shy she had once been. Yet the timing was all wrong, and he couldn't stand to let her make yet another sacrifice for his sake. Not for the first time in the past year and a half, he felt totally inadequate. He realized she was still watching him, waiting for his answer.

"I would like to marry you… someday," he said at last. "But not like this."

Penny blinked rapidly, trying to absorb that information and maybe to hold back tears. "Oh. I thought… um, never mind what I thought."

"My answer isn't no," he replied. "It's just not now."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," she muttered, rolling onto her side so her back was toward him.

"You know that the way my mother raised me still resonates with me. When we get engaged—and I do mean when, not if—I want to be the one kneeling before you, offering you the rest of my life. I need to be the one who will protect and provide for you. I wouldn't be any sort of man if I let you make sacrifices for me without making any of my own. If you think I have changed from being the 'king of self-interest', then give me a chance to prove it to you."

Penny turned back to him. "If this is about your research, I don't need to you to bring home a paycheck. I already told you that. I just want you."

He reached out and pulled her into his arms. "I know. You mean everything to me."

This time when she kissed him, he didn't hold back. All he had to do was focus on how loving and selfless Penny was and how lucky he was to be loved by her. The next morning, he attacked his theorems with renewed fervor and determination.


	24. Chapter 24

Penny threw her purse on the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. She got in behind the wheel and slammed that door too for good measure. She was fuming. She'd just had a huge shouting match with her co-host Jake, right in the hallway outside the studio. Once she cooled off, she knew she'd most likely have to apologize if she wanted to keep her job. The problem was, Jake was such a jerk, and lately he'd been resorting to all sorts of subtle tricks to make her look bad both on and off the air. Much as she hated to admit defeat, she might have to break down and tell Dale, her manager, about her problems with her co-host. The tension was really starting to affect her. In the mornings, her stomach was so tied up in knots that she couldn't eat a thing, and she had a hard time dragging herself out of bed.

Just then, her phone chimed. As she looked at the text message that had just arrived, she shrieked with excitement. All her troubles at work were forgotten. Quickly, she hit the first number on her speed dial. She was talking almost before her boyfriend picked up on the other end. "Did you hear? Amy and Leonard are having a boy!"

"Yes, I received a text message from Leonard just a few minutes ago," he said calmly.

"How can you not be excited about this? Don't you realize what this means? Our little boys might be best friends, just like their daddies. This is the coolest thing ever!" she gushed.

He paused. "Do you really believe that Leonard has my best interests at heart? I've been considering asking him to look over my calculations, but given our history, I'm not sure if that's a good idea."

Penny's heart sank. He did have a point, although she hated to see Sheldon disillusioned about the man who was supposed to be his best friend. With a sigh, she admitted, "I think in the past, you trusted him too much. That thing in the Arctic was just horrible. If he was really your closest friend, he never would've been that mean. If you really think you need Leonard's help, just make sure there's no way he could steal your work and pass it off as his own."

Sheldon paused, and then said, "I don't need Leonard's help, except to check my work for mistakes. I believe I've finally come up with a credible universal theory."

He said this so calmly and with so little fanfare, that at first, Penny wasn't sure she had heard him right. "Are you saying you've solved it? That you've finally figured out the answer to…?"

"Life, the universe, and everything?" he asked with a breathy little laugh. Penny had no idea what that meant, but if it made her normally serious boyfriend chuckle, she figured it was some nerdy sci-fi reference. "In a manner of speaking, yes, but it hasn't been confirmed," he replied.

"That's awesome! I'm so proud of you! Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she cried. She only had to think about it for a moment to know the answer. He had suffered too many setbacks in his career to allow himself to feel excitement until his discovery had been proved right. "Honey, I know this is what you've been waiting for. You ask Leonard or whoever else you trust to check your math, but I believe in you… and I've got a good feeling about this."

Her problems with her co-host were forgotten as she navigated to the nearest mall. She was going to pick up some lingerie that would make Sheldon's jaw drop. Tonight, they were going to celebrate.

* * *

Bernadette was a loyal friend. Even though Penny knew how she felt about kids, she still hadn't gotten around to finding a babysitter who could pass Sheldon's rigid standards. So when she wanted a night alone with her boyfriend, she had to call Bernie. Fortunately, the petite blonde was willing, if not exactly enthusiastic.

"I'll make it up to you," Penny promised as she talked to her over the phone. "How about we have a spa day, just the two of us, this weekend?"

"Without Amy?" Bernie asked.

"I'll invite her if you want to," Penny said.

"Much as I love her, I'd really like it to be just us. If I hear one more pregnancy symptom described in excruciating detail, I think I might be tempted to throttle her."

Penny laughed. "I know, but can you blame her? She's just so happy things are working out with Leonard. I mean, have you seen the two of them together? I think they could spend hours staring into each other's eyes and calling each other cute little pet names."

"Yeah, not really my thing, but whatever works for them," Bernie chuckled. "Okay, I'll see you soon. I'll come pick up Stephen around six if that works for you."

"You're a lifesaver, Bernie. Thanks so much."

* * *

Penny immediately sought out Sheldon as soon as she got home. She squealed in glee and flung herself into his arms. "I knew you could do it!" she cried. She kissed him passionately. Just as things were starting to get interesting, they both heard sounds of fussing coming from Stephen's room, interspersed with cries of "Ma-ma".

Penny groaned and smoothed down the wrinkles she had left in Sheldon's shirt. "Hold that thought. I promise, we'll get back to it," she said with a wink. She walked back to her son's room, where he was clinging forlornly to the baby gate set up across the doorway. Sheldon followed her and watched with a deep sense of satisfaction as she picked up their son and tickled him, making him laugh.

"Oh, this totally makes up for the crappy day I had earlier," she said, inhaling the baby powder scent coming from his soft dark locks.

"Why? What's going on?" Sheldon asked quickly.

She shook her head. "I didn't mean to bring it up. It's just Jake being his usual charming self… and yes, that was totally sarcasm. I think one of these days I just might sock him in the nose."

"I'm certain he would deserve it, but I would hate for your career to suffer on his account," Sheldon replied solemnly.

"I'd be easier to deal with his crap if I didn't feel so tired all the time. Sometimes, I can't even eat."

His face creased with concern. He had noticed that the consumption of breakfast cereal had dropped by almost forty-five percent, but he had assumed that she was simply tired of cold cereal and was eating something else. "Perhaps you should see a doctor. You could have a vitamin deficiency, or…"

She held up a hand. "Hell… uh... heck no," she corrected after a quick glance down at her son. "I've been poked and prodded and experimented on enough." Seeing Sheldon's look of concern, she said, "If I start to feel worse, I'll go see a doctor. But it's really no big deal. I'm just tired; nothing a little caffeine can't fix."

Sheldon eyed her skeptically. He was beginning to wonder if her symptoms weren't stress-related at all, but the other possibility that had started to suggest itself wasn't one he could discuss with her… at least, not yet. So he sighed and said, "Very well. But you understand the necessity of taking our son for his checkups and vaccinations. Please do not neglect your own health."

"I promise," she said. "But enough about me. Tonight, we're going to celebrate your big break-through. Bernie will be here any minute, and she's going to take Stephen for a few hours. I ordered steaks from that steakhouse you liked so much, and then afterward…" With a mischievous grin, Penny flourished a tiny pink bag with a distinctive logo. "Afterward, I'll model this for you."

* * *

The next day, Sheldon took a taxi over to Caltech. He still loathed all forms of public transportation, but after the amazing display of love and support from Penny last night, he hadn't wanted to bother her for a ride. One of these days, he thought, he might even learn how to drive himself. After all, he had a child now. He was responsible for more than just himself. But there was time for that later. He was on his way to meet with President Seibert and Dr. Gablehauser, along with a few other essential people. He had a proposition that he hoped they would seriously consider.

Sheldon met another person outside of the applied sciences building: an older man by the name of Bill Foster. After meticulous online research, he had hired Bill, a patent attorney, to represent his interests in the meeting. Seibert would also have the university's legal counsel there as well. The last person to round out the group would be Leonard.

Leonard was the last to arrive, and he entered Dr. Gablehauser's office cautiously, looking around as if he wasn't sure what was going on. In fact, he didn't know anything; up to this point, Sheldon had made a point of not discussing his research with him except in the broadest generalities.

"Dr. Hofstadter, please have a seat so we can begin our meeting," Gablehauser said. Leonard did as he was told, glancing around from Sheldon to the two unfamiliar faces. He didn't appear any more relaxed when he learned that they were introduced the university's legal counsel and Sheldon's private lawyer.

"Gentlemen... and lady," Sheldon said with a nod at the university lawyer. She looked unimpressed.

"Go ahead, Dr. Cooper," Seibert said with a long-suffering sigh.

"I've invited you all here today to discuss the terms of my re-association with Caltech."

"Wait. All this is because you want your old job back?" Gablehauser burst out incredulously.

"Of course not. My most recent position with Caltech was beneath me, as we were both well aware. I'm here to negotiate my new professional association with this university."

He glanced over at his lawyer, and the older man nodded and slid a thick portfolio onto Gablehauser's desk. "This is documentation going back over the past several months," Bill said. "It proves that Dr. Cooper's work on his universal theory predates his employment with Caltech. In addition, there is a comprehensive analysis of his work schedule, showing that he had no time to work on his research, which ultimately led him to resign from your university. So Caltech has no intellectual property rights to his theory."

Gablehauser and Leonard both immediately focused on the most pertinent phrase. "Universal theory?" they asked, almost in unison.

"What's a universal theory?" Seibert asked, looking slightly annoyed at being left out of the loop.

"It's the Holy Grail of modern physics, a theory that successfully combines two competing models of how the universe works." Gablehauser replied. "But many scientists believe that it can't exist."

"Where is it, Sheldon?" Leonard asked eagerly. "I need to see it."

Sheldon shook his head. "No one sees any of my work until we come to an agreement. I want Caltech to rehire me as a researcher. I won't be teaching any classes for the first two years, and I will decide if I am going to advise any doctoral or post-doctoral candidates… and no committees." He glared at Gablehauser. "All that will be contingent, of course, on my work holding up to peer review. Finally, I have one contingency that must be met before I agree to publish my findings."

Leonard squinted at him. "You mean you want me to check your work first?"

"Actually, I assumed that Seibert would want you to review my calculations before he agrees to any contractual agreement on behalf of the university. My contingency is… personal."

"I don't get it," Leonard said at last. "What could possibly trump the publication of your findings, assuming your work actually checks out?"

Sheldon paused. "I have a girlfriend and a son who lives will be greatly impacted if I publish my theory. I may attract hordes of attention-seeking scientists the way a rock star collects groupies. If Penny isn't comfortable with the idea of our lives changing, I have made up my mind not to publish."

Leonard gaped at him. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, while a flush crept up from his collar to stain his cheeks. "You… you can't be serious," he finally managed.

'If she's your girlfriend, I can't imagine she wouldn't want you to experience success in your chosen field," Seibert said. "I'll have our legal team review your proposal while Dr. Hofstadter studies your work. If he thinks it's promising, we've got a deal."

Sheldon nodded. "I'll need all parties to sign a confidentiality agreement." His lawyer dug the appropriate documents out of his briefcase and handed them over.

"A confidentiality agreement? You've got to be kidding me. Sheldon, I thought we were friends. Don't you trust me?" Leonard asked, tilting his head to the side and giving his old roommate one of his patented sad-puppy-dog looks.

"As you are well aware, I never forget anything, including your betrayal over my monopole experiment. I trust you enough to be quick to point out any errors in my calculations. I don't trust you enough to think you wouldn't take advantage of a situation that presented itself."

Leonard's expression turned sour. "Geez, can't you ever let that go?" he muttered, but he grabbed the papers and signed and initialed quickly without reading the document. Gablehauser, after casting a sharp glance at Leonard, also signed the agreement with only a perfunctory glance at the pages.

Bill collected the paperwork. "Thank you, gentlemen. I look forward to doing business with you. As soon as Dr. Hofstadter has reviewed Dr. Cooper's work to their mutual satisfaction, we will reconvene to finalize the details of Dr. Cooper's affiliation with Caltech." He ushered Sheldon out of the room, and they walked in silence out of the building. Once outside, Bill turned to Sheldon. "Relax, Dr. Cooper. The meeting went well. You might be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson very soon, and I'm honored to represent you."

Sheldon straightened to his full height and gave Bill the slightest hint of a smile. Soon, Neil deGrasse Tyson may consider himself lucky to be compared to me."


	25. Chapter 25

Penny pulled up in front of the radio station and sat in her car in the parking lot. She was supposed to go in early. After her big blow-up with her co-host Jake, she had immediately emailed her manager and requested a meeting. She was sure he would be sympathetic; after all, he obviously knew when he introduced them that Jake was trouble. Just a few days ago, she had hoped that she could transfer to another show. Maybe another radio personality could use a partner.

That had all been before this morning. Her day had started out like any other day. She had woken up to bright morning sunlight streaming in through the mullioned windows in their bedroom. Stumbling sleepily out of bed, she had put on a robe and gone out to say good morning to her boyfriend and son. After a few minutes with them, she grabbed the coffee that Sheldon always had waiting for her on the kitchen counter, two sugars, no cream, just like she liked it. Then she headed back to the bathroom to get ready. It was while she was showering that she had found it: a lump, hard as a rock, low in her abdomen. It didn't move when she pushed on it, and suddenly, her exhaustion and loss of appetite made sense to her. Cancer. She had cancer. Her mother's aunt had died of stomach cancer when she was a teen. She hadn't known Aunt Carol very well, but she had vivid memories of visiting her in the  
hospital. The woman's eyes had been dull and sunken, her skin like parchment paper, and most of her hair had fallen out from the chemotherapy. Penny had never wanted to get away so badly. She knew her aunt was going to die; she was just waiting, suffering, until the inevitable end. And now Penny was convinced she had the same thing. She should have listened to Sheldon when he told her to see a doctor, but that experience with her aunt had scarred her for life long before their abduction. She never  
went to see a doctor unless it was absolutely necessary, like that time she had dislocated her shoulder. How long had she ignored her symptoms? Long enough… maybe too long. She had called and made an appointment with a doctor, but she feared it might be too late.

The rest of the morning, she wandered around in a daze. Took Stephen to the park and pushed him on the swings and wondered how the hell she was ever going to tell Sheldon. He would… she didn't know what he would do, exactly, but she knew it wouldn't be pretty. He had weathered a lot of change in the past couple of years, but they had always handled it together. She looked down at her son, who had  
fallen asleep in the stroller as they walked back home from the park, and the tears started to fall. How could her little baby grow up without his mother? As she approached the apartment, she wiped the tears off of her face with the backs of her hands and tried to compose herself. Fortunately, Sheldon was still terrible at reading facial expressions. All she had to do was avoid him until she could get to the bathroom and hold a cold washcloth on her eyes to get rid of the redness. She knew she would have to tell him, but she couldn't, not yet.

The meeting she had scheduled with Dale actually worked in her favor. She used it as an excuse to skip out on lunch with her two "boys". Now, as she walked into the low brick building, she wondered if she should just tell Dale she was quitting. She stopped, blinking, and then straightened her shoulders. What was she thinking? She was Penny, the woman who had been a Junior Rodeo champ, the one who struck out for California with just a dream and a suitcase. She had survived an alien abduction, helped her dearest friend heal from his traumatic past, and coped when a baby was literally dumped into her arms. A rude, mouthy co-star was nothing. And cancer… she was going to fight that too, fight to stay with the man she loved and their son. So when she was ushered into Dale's office by his assistant, she felt like she was almost ready to burst with a barely leashed energy.

"Come on in, Penny." Dale greeted her. As she took a seat opposite his desk, he added, "I think I already know what this is about. I heard that you and Jake had it out yesterday after your show. It's a small station; word gets around."

Penny smiled. "You know, as I was coming in here, I was thinking maybe it would be best for everyone if I just quit, save you the trouble of firing me." Dale opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "But then I realized how stupid that would be. You knew what Jake was like before I started working here. How many other co-hosts has he run off? For that matter, how is he even still on the air? I don't understand how assholes like him are ever given a soapbox to use to run their mouths, but it doesn't matter. If you have another position for me, I'm willing to talk. If not, maybe it's Jake you should be thinking about letting go, because I'm through putting up with his crap."

Dale looked a little taken aback by her outburst, and for a moment, Penny felt bad. Not for what she'd said, but for the way she'd said it. He had given her a chance when no one else would have.

To her surprise, Dale smiled. In fact, his mouth twitched, and he started chuckling. "I feel like that speech almost deserves an ovation," he said. "You're absolutely right. I knew what Jake was like, and I deliberately threw you to the wolves… or wolf, I guess you could say. From my perspective, it made sense in more than one way. If you weren't the diamond in the rough my daughter thought you were, Jake would have made you run screaming. If you were, I figured you could handle yourself… which you have. And don't forget, I brought you on with absolutely no previous media experience. As it is, I'm going to have a lot of really irate employees when they hear I'm giving you your own time slot."

"I… what?" Penny couldn't wrap her mind around what he had just said. Given the way she had just unloaded on him, she half-expected to be fired, not promoted. "My own time slot? You mean my own show?"

He grinned at her. "You saw the show's statistics as well as I did. You're wasted as Jake's co-star, but I needed time to get all the details hashed out. We're moving him to a mid-morning slot with another station that I manage. You get to keep your same hours, only now it's all yours. A call-in talk show about love, life and relationships. We'll call it 'Penny for your Thoughts'. It practically named itself," he added with a grin.

She blinked for a moment, and then laughed. "I guess it did. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that line, usually from some half-wasted jock who thinks he's being clever. But the way you're using it, you turned it around so it actually means something. People are going to know my name _and_ the point of the show from that one simple phrase. It's perfect."

Dale grinned back at her. "I'm glad you like it, because that's already how I pitched the show to our sponsors. We'll need a few more weeks to get the final details ironed out, but if you can't work with him anymore, then I'm sure we can give you some paid time off."

Penny thought about that for a moment. "I might take you up on that offer at some point, but for now? It's not like I don't know how to put him down hard if he doesn't behave. Besides, I wouldn't wish him on any other poor sap."

Dale chuckled again. "Then I'll be in touch. And I feel I do owe you an apology for one thing: I talked to Jake yesterday, told him we were moving his show. I guess that's why he was so nasty to you."

She shrugged. "After everything else I've had to deal with in my life, Jake's just a bump in my road."

* * *

When Penny got home, the apartment was quiet. Going in search of her boys, she found instead that their dining room had been converted back to its original function, with Sheldon's desk and whiteboards shoved out of the way. In the center of the room, a small round table had been set up with a snowy white tablecloth, taper candles, and place settings for two. She looked at it in confusion. Just then, Sheldon came around the corner. He was dressed in the charcoal grey suit she had convinced him to buy years ago, and he looked more handsome than ever.

"What's going on?" she asked with a smile for him despite the emotional turmoil of her day.

"Tonight, we are celebrating. I asked Howard and Bernadette to watch Stephen for a few hours, so we  
have the place to ourselves until eight."

His eyes danced, belying his serious expression, but there was also a tension in the way he stood. She  
studied his face for a moment, trying to understand it. He was both nervous and excited. Then his words caught up with her, and she frowned. "Celebrate? Did Dale call you? Did he tell you about the  
show?"

"No. What show?"

"It's nothing," she began.

He came over to her and took her hands in his. "Do you have something to celebrate as well?" he asked. The tenderness in his face almost made her want to cry, and she realized to her alarm that she was actually tearing up.

"Yeah," she whispered, wiping at her eyes. "It's a good thing; it really is. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed."

He wrapped his arms around her and whispered, "There, there. It's all right. Whatever you want to  
tell me, know that I am here for you and that I love you."

When she had composed herself, he led her back to their bedroom. With a tinge of amusement, she saw that he had laid out the red dress—his favorite—out on a chair. Then he showed her the adjoining bathroom, where she really did laugh, because he had laid out almost every cosmetic she owned on the counter.

"I wanted to help you get ready," he explained sheepishly. "And then I realized that while I am  
familiar with the cosmetics you use every day, I had no idea which ones are appropriate for special occasions. We don't go out often, and…"

"It's okay," Penny said quickly. "I don't mind… really. Spending time with you and Stephen means more to me than anything."

He smiled, one of those adorable lopsided grins that she had come to love so much, and said, "I love you too." He glanced down at his wrist (Penny was amused to see that he wore a black and silver Batman logo watch with his suit) and said, "You have approximately thirty-two minutes before our dinner arrives."

She got dressed quickly, and despite taking extra care with her hair and makeup, she was ready before Sheldon's deadline. Walking into the dining room in a pair of heels tall enough that she could almost look him in the eye, she loved the very masculine glance of appreciation he gave her. He whispered that she looked beautiful as he pulled out her chair for her. Then he draped a white linen towel over her arm and proceeded to offer her a choice of either her favorite zinfandel or sparkling cider.

She gave him a funny look. "Why would I want sparkling cider? Or is that for you?"

He looked confused for a moment, then quickly turned away as he poured the cider into his own glass. "Of course it's for me. I do want to remember this evening. I merely wanted to give you options."

She frowned at him, realizing that he hadn't yet told her what they were celebrating. Something to do with his research, she assumed. A knock at the door distracted her. Sheldon left the room and came back with insulated carriers which he unpacked to reveal a steak dinner for two.

"This came from Delmonico's," he explained. "Although I've never been there before, for a sizeable tip, the chef was willing to set up a live feed so I could see that everyone preparing our food was wearing gloves."

Penny laughed, wondering exactly how big of a tip Sheldon had to pay for that kind of special treatment. "I thought you'd gotten over your germ phobia a little more than that."

He grinned ruefully. "In many situations, yes, but not only was this a new restaurant, I wanted to ensure that neither of us would contract a viral illness simply because tonight is a special occasion."

She put down her fork and looked at him. "Honey, you never did tell me what we're celebrating."

He hesitated. "You first. You said something about a show and that you thought your manager may have contacted me?"

She wondered again at his atypical behavior. Usually, if he had something to tell her, he couldn't wait to blurt it out. "Okay. Well, I went in to talk to Dale about the situation with Jake. I was ready to quit if I had to, but he told me I'm getting my own show. It's going to be a call-in talk show. I guess I've already done that a little co-hosting with Jake the jerk, but now he's the one moving to a different station."

"Congratulations, my love. I am so very proud of you," Sheldon replied. He was smiling at her, but he still looked a little nervous, and he had barely touched his food. Come to think of it, neither had she.

"Alright, out with it. You said you had something to celebrate tonight, too. Does it have something to do with your theory?"

He nodded slowly and pushed his plate aside. From the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he pulled out a small cream-colored envelope and handed it to her. Penny looked at it curiously. For a moment, with this fancy dinner, she had thought that maybe he might be pulling out a certain piece of jewelry. She opened the envelope in bemusement to find a matching card inside. On it was written a string of symbols and what she thought were Greek letters. She looked up at him, comprehension dawning. "Is this it? Is this your universal theory?"

"Yes. I've had my work test and retested. All the math checks out. It's right; I'm sure of it."

Her face lit up with a huge smile. "Oh, honey, that's wonderful-"

"And I want you to have it," he said quickly.

She glanced uncertainly at him. "I don't understand. What do you mean, you want _me_ to have it? This is your theory, your work that you've been obsessing over for the past six months." She tried to hand it back to him, but he refused to take it. Instead, he stood in front of her and closed her hands around the scrap of paper. Still holding her hands, he carefully lowered himself to one knee. Penny's heart began to pound, and her hands trembled in his.

"My future is literally in your hands. This represents all of my greatest accomplishments and my best possibility for winning a Nobel Prize. All these months, you have supported me and believed in me without expecting anything in return. I don't deserve to have someone like you who loves me so much, so to me, this is the only thing that is good enough to give you. I couldn't think of anything else that would show you how much you mean to me. So Penny... will you marry me?"

Penny gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. "You mean…" Her eyes darted from the paper to his face, and suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. She knew, with absolute conviction, that she couldn't accept until he knew everything. "Oh, honey, I don't even have words to tell you how much this means to me. I love you more than anything. But before I say yes…" She paused and took a shaky breath. "There's something I have to tell you."


	26. Chapter 26

Penny hesitated, unsure how to begin. The thought that she might have cancer was something she could barely comprehend. It seemed terribly unfair to burden Sheldon with this when she didn't even know for certain, but she couldn't allow him to propose until he knew everything.

"I've been feeling sick lately," she began. "I've been just exhausted and sick to my stomach, and sometimes I'm starving but I can't bring myself to eat anything and…"

Sheldon had been kneeling on the floor in front of her, but now he drew up a chair and sat facing her, so close that their knees were touching. He took the crumpled card from her and laid it on the table, and then took her hands in his. "I know," he said gently. "I have an IQ of 187, so it wasn't that hard for me to figure out. I've just been waiting for you to be ready to tell me."

To her horror, Penny felt the tears start to flow again. She was both reassured and annoyed by his calm reaction. She was grateful for his support and knew she needed him to be strong, but couldn't he look a little upset? "I don't know what to do. I've been so scared," she confessed.

He looked at her in confusion. "I thought you would be happy about this."

"Happy?" she echoed in disbelief. "You think I'd be happy about having cancer?"

The color slowly drained from Sheldon's face, and he grabbed the edge of the cloth-covered table for support. "Cancer? I thought…" He dropped his face into his hands, and his whole body shuddered. When he met her eyes again, it was through his parted fingers as if he was trying to shelter himself from her news. "I thought you were pregnant," he said in a half-whisper.

Penny's stomach lurched, and for a moment, she tried to reinterpret her symptoms in an entirely different light. But she couldn't allow herself to do that. To hope for something that she had secretly longed for, knowing it was impossible, was too cruel. "Honey, I told you. I can't get pregnant."

He was studying her face so intently that she felt pinned in place by his gaze. "Are you certain that you have cancer? Have you been to see a doctor? Because I believe your symptoms more closely match pregnancy than cancer. You have been extremely tired but have difficulty sleeping, nauseated at certain times but able to eat later, overly emotional and prone to bouts of crying, and your menstrual cycle still hasn't resumed its normal rhythm."

Penny felt cold. The first few symptoms she couldn't deny, but she thought he had explained the last to her. "You told me I wouldn't get my period as long as I was nursing Stephen."

"Nursing _exclusively_ ," he corrected. "Our son started on solid foods almost three months ago."

"That still doesn't explain how I could be pregnant when doctors have told me it's not possible."

At this, Sheldon actually looked abashed. He looked down and swallowed hard. "That is partially my fault. Right before we were returned to earth, the one alien - the sub-associate - came up to us in the transporter room. That was when he communicated the concept behind my universal theory. I was so stunned by the possibilities of that idea and rather overwhelmed by the thought of returning home with you and our son that I overlooked a crucial detail. He did something to you as well. That metallic wand that he passed over you… I think it was a medical device. Another alien used a similar object to cause your body to instantly start lactating when they remanded Stephen to our care. We lack that kind of technology, but it's possible that the device healed the damage that had been done to your reproductive system. The whole time that you were exclusively nursing, your body would have prevented ovulation as an adaptive evolutionary measure designed to prevent overtaxing your natural reserves…"

"Wait, Sheldon, you don't understand," she interrupted. She hated to say it, but she had to. "I have a lump. This thing that's as hard as a rock in my belly…" She trailed off, and her eyes widened in sudden comprehension as she put a hand on her stomach.

He took a step closer and reached out to her. "May I?" he asked, and she nodded. Even in the midst of her turmoil, she couldn't help but think how adorable Sheldon was, asking permission to touch her even though they slept curled up around each other every night, skin to skin. His long-fingered hands splayed across her abdomen and pressed carefully, feeling the unyielding protrusion.

"It's approximately the right size and position of a gravid uterus," he pronounced. He looked at Penny, but she had covered her face with her hands.

"I can't stand it," she said. "I want to believe you, but what if you're wrong? You have no idea what it's like to have this be either my worst nightmare or my wildest dreams come true."

With a sudden movement, Sheldon leaped up. "Stay right there," he ordered. Then he ran out of the room. Bewildered, she stared after him. Seconds later, he was back. He pulled her to her feet and held her close. "I think I can set your mind at ease," he said. "But before I go, I'm asking you to say yes." He picked up the crumpled card from the table. "It seems doubly significant now that I offer you my entire life with this dilemma hanging over us. I wish I could marry you right now so I could say the words 'in sickness and in health' to you, and you would know how much I meant them. I am not leaving you, ever. I will be right by your side no matter what happens."

Penny clung to him as the tears spilled out from beneath her tightly shut eyes. For a moment, she was so overcome that she couldn't say anything, so she just nodded. Wiping her tears away, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him like she was never letting go. "I don't deserve you," she said finally. "But I'm still gonna say yes."

He grinned at her, gave her a quick kiss, and then dashed out the door. "I'll be right back!" he yelled over his shoulder. To Penny's confusion, moments later, she heard her car start up. She peered out the window to see Sheldon driving away in her car.

Penny had an idea what he was up to. Her suspicions were confirmed when he returned about twenty minutes later, bearing a bag marked with the logo of a local pharmacy. The bag contained an astonishing number of pregnancy tests. She almost laughed as he dumped them out on the table, shoving aside their now-forgotten dinner. It gave her something to focus on besides her extreme nervousness.

"Wow, did you buy out the store?" she asked.

"I bought two of every kind," he explained. "That way if you need to, you can repeat the tests in the morning."

She held up two handfuls of slim cardboard boxes. "Honey, how on earth do you expect me to use-"

He thrust a shrink-wrapped specimen cup at her.

She made a disgusted face, but took the plastic cup along with the tests to the bathroom. Sheldon paced outside the door, clearly just as anxious as she but also unwilling to come in until she was finished. It took her several minutes to unwrap all the packaging. Then she had to pee in the cup and dip in all the ends of the wands. She laid them out in a neat row on several layers of toilet paper, washed her hands and rejoined Sheldon.

"Are your hands clean?" he demanded as soon as she exited the bathroom. With a sigh, she mutely held her hands out to him. To her surprise, he took her left hand and slid a ring onto her fourth finger.

"Oh, it's beautiful," she cried. The ring was a square-cut diamond surrounded by delicate filigree. For a moment, she really did forget everything else as she slid her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest, listening to his heart beat. The rhythm was strong and sure, and she felt like it was beating just for her. She snuggled a little closer to him and was comforted by his strength.

"Penny…" Sheldon said at last. She looked up at him questioningly. "It's time. Shall I go look?"

She slid her hand into his. "We'll go together." This was easier said than done, as the apartment dated back to the turn of the century, when the bathrooms were quite small. Sheldon walked in first, still holding her hand, and stopped.

"What is it?" she asked, crowding around him to see. She saw double lines, pink plus signs and one smiley face. She clutched his hand so hard that he gasped. "Is it… are we…" she stammered, unable to voice her thoughts.

He turned to her, and she thought she had never seen him look so happy. "Yes. You're pregnant," he whispered in a hushed voice. Then he did something that had to be seen to be believed. He knelt down on the tiled bathroom floor and touched her stomach in awe, almost reverently. "My child… our child. We made a baby together," he said. He blinked several times, looked away and wiped at his face with the back of his hand. Seeing him overcome with joy, Penny knew she had never loved him more. Suddenly, she couldn't wait until she could call him her husband.

How long they stayed like that, she wasn't sure. After some time had passed-minutes or days, she couldn't tell which-she heard a voice calling her name. Recognizing Bernadette's voice, she wondered what she was doing at their apartment. She found Bernie waiting in their living room, looking a little uncomfortable.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Bernie began when she saw Penny. "Stephen's fine; he's sleeping." She nodded her head toward the car seat by her feet where the baby slept peacefully. "It's just that it was past ten, and it was getting late. I tried to call both your cell phones, and when neither of you picked up, I got worried, so I came on over and let myself in with the key you gave me."

Penny blushed. "I'm so sorry, Bernadette. We got kind of distracted."

"Yeah, I figured that," Bernie said waspishly.

"It's actually not what you think. You see, we…" She reached out and linked her hand with that of her new fiancé. "We're engaged. Sheldon just proposed."

The slightly annoyed look vanished from Bernie's face in an instant. "Oh, Penny, I'm so happy for you!" she cried with a big smile.

"And she's pregnant," Sheldon cut in with understandable pride.

To her credit, Bernie's smile faltered only somewhat.

"Hey, you're not supposed to tell everyone!" Penny cried, turning to Sheldon with a look of consternation on her face. "We don't even know for sure. I haven't been to see a doctor yet."

"I think eight positive pregnancy tests is a reasonable validation. And I _am_ a doctor, Penny, albeit not a medical doctor."

Penny rolled her eyes at him. "That's not the point, honey." She faced her friend and gave her a sheepish grin. "We're pretty sure, so… surprise!"

Bernadette hugged her, and after a quick, uncertain glance at Sheldon, hugged him briefly as well. "Congratulations on both the baby and the engagement," she said. "Just do me one favor, Penny?"

"Sure," Penny said, puzzled.

"Find yourselves another babysitter before the second one's born."

Penny was instantly contrite. "You're right. I will; I promise. Thank you so much for watching Stephen."

Bernie smiled ruefully. "You don't ever have to question if you're my best friend when I'm willing to watch your kids for you. I just hope I feel differently about it when Howie and I decide to have children."

Penny looked up into Sheldon's face. He looked so happy. There was a time when she would have never imagined she would see that emotion in him. "I think you will," she answered softly. "When you love someone this much, creating a new life that's part him and part you… it's like a miracle."

Bernadette glanced back and forth between her friend's joyful faces. "Maybe," she whispered softly.


	27. Chapter 27

Epilogue

In all the excitement, Sheldon's universal theory was almost overlooked. He couldn't have imagined a scenario in which a potential Nobel Prize-winning concept could take a back seat to anything, but he had no regrets. The next morning, he was able to discuss the ramifications of publishing his work with Penny. His biggest concern was the possible invasion of their privacy if he won the Nobel, but her fears seemed to have vanished. She laughed and said that while she was sure he could name every scientist who had even won the Nobel Prize for physics (and he could, of course), that most people didn't even know who the most recent winner was. So with her full agreement, he informed Gablehauser, Seibert and Leonard that he was submitting his paper to the American Journal of Physics. In less than two weeks, he got a personal call from the editor of the journal. His universal theory was going to be their cover story.

To his surprise, Penny wanted to get married right away, although it took him some time to realize that "right away" to her meant a few months. She rejected the idea of going down to City Hall and saying their vows in front of a justice of the peace, but neither did she want a big wedding. All that really mattered to him was to finally be able to call her his wife, although getting his mom to stop nagging him about "making an honest woman" of Penny was a close second. Their wedding date would arrive just before Amy's eighth month of pregnancy, and she was more than a little disappointed that the impending birth prevented her from being the maid of honor. Penny soothed her feelings by promising that she would be Amy's matron of honor. There was no ring on Amy's finger yet, but she was sure Leonard was going to propose soon, and so she told Penny she would hold her to that promise.

Their wedding was a small, private affair, just family and friends, and it was held in an elegantly-appointed reception hall at Caltech. The bride was glowing with happiness, with a little baby bump just starting to show under her empire-waisted gown. Raj and Beth walked Stephen, who was the ring bearer, down the aisle. He looked up at his mom and dad, giggled, and then tried to run away, still clutching the pillow to which the rings had been secured with velcro. Penny and Sheldon shared a half-amused, half-exasperated glance, and then they both started to laugh. Raj grabbed the toddler before he could get more than a few steps away, earning him an adoring look from his girlfriend. Penny spared a moment to wonder if Raj and Beth had started talking about their future too.

After the ceremony was over, their friends crowded around them to congratulate them. While Sheldon was talking to his mother (doubtless receiving a lot of unwanted advice), Leonard came up to Penny.

"I, uh… I just wanted to say I'm happy for you," he said.

"Are you really?" she asked, not unkindly.

He took a deep breath. "Yeah. I always thought you were my destiny. It just took me a while to realize that even if it wasn't meant to be between us, I still want you and Sheldon to be part of my life. He's more forgiving than I am, weird as that sounds. We've started collaborating on a new paper, and he's even talked to Gablehauser about giving me tenure. I owe him a lot, so I'm sorry I was such a jerk."

Penny nodded and gave him a quick hug. "I forgive you. Just be good to Amy. It doesn't take much to make her happy, and she loves you, you know."

He smiled sheepishly. "I know. It's different than what we had, but maybe… maybe it's better. She's not as complicated, you know?"

Penny gave him a sad smile. "I don't think I was complicated; I just think I was trying to be the girlfriend you wanted without losing my own identity. I shouldn't have. It was bad for both of us."

He nodded slowly. "I know I don't have to wish that you'll be happy, because I can see you already are. I just hope he's good to you."

She thought back to the memory of Sheldon giving her his universal theory and then kneeling on the floor in front of her to touch her stomach, and her radiant smile was answer enough.

* * *

Sheldon's predictions came true. Less than a year later, he was on a plane headed for Stockholm to be the next recipient of the Nobel Prize for physics. This was one of the most stressful things he had done lately, but Penny was with him every step of the way. Per her advice, he had spent a semester teaching an undergrad physics class with over a hundred students, so he was now fairly certain he could get through his acceptance speech in front of a large audience without passing out. Penny had been reluctant to leave their daughter behind, as she was only three months old. Fortunately, Sheldon's mother had fairly jumped at the opportunity to spend a week with her grandchildren. Penny knew they were in good hands, but she still found that she worried about them. She told Sheldon she figured it was part of the the job description of being a mom, and he couldn't disagree.

The award ceremony was actually a rather exclusive affair, and Sheldon was relieved he would be giving a speech to only hundreds of people instead of thousands. He was unimpressed at getting to shake hands with either King Harald V of Norway or Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but he was very excited to receive an invitation to meet with Stephen Hawking on the way home. There were dozens of physicists who were clamoring to work with him, but Sheldon knew he had no intentions of collaborating with anyone. Co-authoring a few papers with Leonard was as much as he was willing to share any of his newfound fame, but for him, the real challenge still lay ahead. He knew he had barely scratched the surface in advancing mankind's knowledge of the universe, and unlike most of his peers, he had first-hand experience of the technological wonders the human race might eventually develop.

So he returned to his home in Pasadena, displayed his medal in a case on his office wall, and kept working. Now that he was no longer required to teach classes, he found he enjoyed advising a few select doctoral candidates. The lucky ones who made a good impression sometimes even got invited to his home for dinner, where they got a glimpse of Dr. Sheldon Cooper as few others knew him. They learned that he was a devoted husband and father. His four children were home-schooled, and they were encouraged to study anything that captures their interest. His oldest son, Stephen, was off-the-charts brilliant. Sheldon proudly told anyone who would listen that he believed his son would one day surpass him in accomplishments. His wife, Penny, was even better known to his students as the host of the enormously popular radio show, "Penny for Your Thoughts". Eventually, she transitioned into a webcast show (at that point, broadcast and cable were things of the past) and ended up writing a number of self-help books. But the proudest moment of her career was when she was awarded an honorary master's degree in Media Communications from Caltech, for the way she had used her abilities to help millions of people better their lives.

Penny never did get the chance to be Amy's maid of honor. Amy went into false labor a few weeks after Sheldon and Penny's wedding. That was when Leonard realized how important it was to him to be married to the mother of his son before their child was born. He somehow convinced the hospital chaplain to conduct a religious wedding ceremony for them at the hospital, although they still had to fill out the required paperwork later to make it legal. Two years after Leonard Jr. was born, they had a girl that Amy, the history buff, christened Laura Victoria. Leonard and Amy both went on to have respected careers. Leonard was granted tenure two years after Sheldon won the Nobel, and he loved being addressed as "professor". Amy continued her research with neurobiology and eventually co-founded a pharmaceutical company with Bernadette. Although she seemed to love Leonard, she confided to Penny years later that she and Leonard had agreed to have an open marriage, and they were both much happier for it. It was one of the few times when Penny was struck speechless.

Bernadette and Howard also had two children, both girls. Howard doted on them and spoiled them every bit as much as his mother had spoiled him. Bernadette loved her children too, of course, just in a more reserved fashion. Her new business venture with Amy had her working long hours, but perhaps that just helped her to make the most of the time she did spend with her family. Howard ended up working for a space contracting company, eventually earning more money than all the rest of his friends combined. He loved teasing Sheldon about how the one guy with the master's degree made more money, and of course, Sheldon always snarkily asked him where _his_ Nobel Prize was. They still acted like boys when they got together. In some ways, Penny and her friends knew their husbands would never grow up.

After several years of dating, Raj and Beth married too, happily defying his parents' racist prejudices. They decided to adopt instead of having children of their own. Their family grew to a total of eight: the two of them, six children, and any number of dogs, cats, hamsters, birds, snakes, fish and other pets, because Beth loved animals of all kinds. They were the only ones who moved away, from California to New Mexico. There, Beth could pursue her dream of working as a park ranger in one of the national parks, while Raj had access to some of the best astronomical observatories in the country. They bought a small ranch, added horses and ponies to their menagerie, and kids and animals roamed freely in a paradise of few restrictions.

The four original friends-Leonard, Howard, Raj and Sheldon-had matured, fallen in love, married and had families. They each learned to forge their own path to happiness and to support their spouses and children in doing the same. Their kids, fourteen of them in all, grew up together feeling like they were all part of one big, extended family. When they were old enough, they were allowed to spend summers on the Koothrapali ranch. Years after that, a few romances blossomed, and the families were further united by marriages between the next generation. The friendship of their parents influenced their children and their children's children for many years into the future.

* * *

A/N: Wow, this is definitely my longest fanfic to date. Thanks to everyone who made it to the end, and put up with my delayed posting of the last few chapters... Around chapter 20, I decided my ending was crap and needed to be completely rewritten. It made it a lot longer, but also gave me the chance to flesh out Penny's career and the developing relationship between Leonard & Amy. So thanks again. You're the best!


End file.
